Psychology Clinic

UQ With You: Privacy policy

The following paragraphs explain the Privacy Policy of UQ With You:

This policy is designed to assure that information gathered by your psychologist or counsellor over the course of care through UQ With You is used in an appropriate, secure manner, and to provide for access to, and correction of, such information.

Information gathered
Over the course of your Telehealth appointments, information is gathered that allows the practitioner to make an informed professional decision as to the most appropriate care to be offered to you. This information will include basic demographic data (e.g. name, date of birth, address, etc), as well as other information that is deemed relevant. This will usually include the following:

  • The nature of the problem for which you are presenting;
  • Implications of the presenting problems for you;
  • A history of the presenting problem;
  • A family history of relevant information; and
  • Other information deemed necessary to make an informed judgement about the nature of your concerns and other relevant factors

Confidentiality of information
Generally, all information gathered over the course of your sessions remains confidential within the service. There are several notable exceptions, however, to this confidentiality:

  • All practitioners discuss their case load with a highly experienced practitioner in a supervisory relationship. Information on the nature of the case (though not necessarily full identifying information) is shared with the practitioner’s supervisor;
  • In the event that the practitioner forms the professional opinion that either the client, or another individual is a risk for significant harm, a moral obligation may exist to act on this information with the aim of preventing such harm;
  • In the event that a file is subpoenaed to court;
  • In the event that a written Record Release Authority is provided with the client’s signature.

Use of information
Information gathered by UQ With You is used exclusively for two purposes:

  • For the formation of a professional opinion which is used to guide care for you in terms of the presenting issues or other issues that arise during the course of your care provided through UQ With You; and
  • For the evaluation of the service provided by UQ With You, through collation of detailed statistics about referral sources, nature of presenting problems, attendance durations, etc. In all cases where information is used for statistical purposes, no identifying information is made available. In other words, we will simply use overall numbers form all clients and you will not be individually identified in these statistics in any way

Security of information
Information provided to UQ With You is held both in the Client File and the UQ With You Database (demographics and basic diagnostic information only). All files will be stored securely and can only be accessed by team members of UQ with You. Physical files do not leave UQ with You operating facilities.

Obtaining information
Requests for information may be made to psyclinic@psy.uq.edu.au. Requests should be specific as to the exact information required and should be acknowledged within 14 days in writing. Once a request for information is received, the Clinic Manager will conduct a thorough chart review and collate the information in an appropriate manner to ensure adequate and full understanding on the part of the requesting person.

Procedure for complaint/rectifying information
Official complaints or requests to change inaccurate or erroneous information should be made to psyclinic@psy.uq.edu.au. In such cases the Clinic Manager will conduct a review of the information held by the Clinic and make every effort to ensure that such information is accurate.

Access to privacy policy
This document should be freely available, and accessible on request by all staff and clients of UQ With You. Its availability should be announced in a prominent location and discussed with each client during their first session.