Personal information

Personal information is any information about an identifiable individual. 

Collection of Personal information

As a health care provider NZHG may collect, use, and disclose personal information relating to our clients to provide health care services to them.

We also use and disclose personal information relating to contractors, suppliers and employees in the performance of our business activities.

This privacy statement applies to all personal information managed by NZHG.

How we collect it

We collect personal information about you when you:

• register with or use a service provided by NZHG
• have a face-to-face consultation with a member of our staff
• complete an online form on our website or via our APP
• contact us via email or telephone with an enquiry
• are referred to our services by other health professionals or by your employer
• apply for and /or obtain a job with us
• complete a patient feedback survey

What we collect

The sort of information we collect from you will depend on the reason for our engagement with you, but we will only ever collect that information which is necessary for us to carry out our functions as a health care provider and employer. 

The personal information we collect may include:

• Contact information – full name, address, email, phone numbers, next of kin/emergency contact details.
• Unique identifiers – these are identifier numbers or codes assigned by another agency, such as an ACC case number, an NHI or an IRD number
• Employee information – employment history, references, work performance information
• Financial information – bank account details
• Sensitive information – health and medical history necessary for the safe and effective delivery of health care.
• Ethnicity and gender – for (anonymised) reporting purposes and for assigning appropriate support workers.

Most of this information will be collected from you directly, but there will be some instances when we might need to collect information about you from others, such as from your family or your employer.  We will only ever collect information from others when you have consented or authorised that collection, or where collection from others is permitted under the Health Information Privacy Code 2020 or the Privacy Act 2020.

Use of Personal Information

We use this information to ensure that people using our services receive the necessary health care they require from us and to manage the employment of our staff. 

More specifically we use the information to:

• provide personalised services to you
• respond to you directly when you’ve contacted us with a query
• send out client user surveys
• email you with relevant resources for you to voluntarily seek help/support
• manage your job application or and / employment with us

We use cookies on our websites that collect anonymous information from your computer about how you use our website.  We use that information to optimise the way our website operates by making it more helpful to you when you use it in future.

Where we need to use information in a way we have not anticipated, we will only do so if required or permitted by law or with your authorisation.

Disclosure     

We may need to disclose your information to other agencies we engage to carry out work on our behalf.  If we need to do that, we will ensure that those agencies comply with or meet the standards offered under New Zealand privacy laws. 

We will otherwise only disclose your personal information if that was the reason we collected it, with your consent, or if required or authorised by law. 

Examples of disclosures of personal information may include to:

• your authorised health practitioner (i.e. your GP)
• our subsidiary companies and their staff
• our professional advisers (lawyers and accountants)
• other health providers in relation to carrying out the service you’ve requested
• external agents involved in healthcare audit for improvement of our services
• Government agencies such as ACC, MSD, Te Whatu Ora to take actions connected to the purpose of collection

We will never sell your information. 

Storage and security

We use third party providers to store and process our data including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services cloud servers located in Australia. We use Microsoft Office 365 for our email and office productivity applications. You can read more about Microsoft’s privacy and security practices at www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter

NZHG adheres to the approved standards of New Zealand’s Health Information Standards Organisation (HISO).

Security

We take all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we collect is protected against loss, alteration, unauthorised access, disclosure or any other misuse and we keep the information only for as long as we need it.

Your privacy rights and choices

The Privacy Act 2020 gives you rights to request access to and correction of the personal information we hold about you.

To request access to or correction of your information please email: [email protected]

You are welcome to contact us at that address if you have any privacy complaints or concerns, or about anything covered in this privacy statement.  We try to deal with all complaints as quickly as possible and always in accordance with the timeframes set out in the Privacy Act. 

If we can’t resolve your concerns, then you have the right to complain to the Privacy commission:

https://www.privacy.org.nz/your-rights/making-a-complaint/

Other information

This privacy statement does not cover links within this site to other websites. If you follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy statement. We encourage you to read those privacy statements so that you understand how they collect, use and share your information. 

Sometimes it will be necessary for us to update and change this privacy statement.  We will do that by posting an updated version on our website.