Collection of Information

At Auckland Radiation Oncology (ARO), we are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring the security of your personal information. This privacy statement outlines how we collect, use, and protect your personal data.

The Health Information and Privacy Code 2020 sets specific rules for health organisations on the use of health information in compliance with the Privacy Act 2020. We are required to observe certain restrictions and standards relating to the information we collect, hold, use, and disclose about you. Access to more information about the Privacy Code can be found at www.privacy.org.nz.

We collect personal information primarily to provide you with healthcare services. Additionally, we use this information to plan and manage healthcare services, monitor the quality of our services, fulfil legal obligations, support research and education, address enquiries, complaints, and legal proceedings, and for billing and administrative tasks, including submitting health fund claims on your behalf. We may share anonymised and aggregated (i.e. non-identifiable) information with third-party organisations for research, quality improvement, education and service development purposes.

What information do we collect?

The types of information we collect may include:

• your name, date of birth, home address, contact email and phone number, next of kind details, national health index number,
• your current and past health information, family health conditions,
• private medical insurance details and billing details.

With your consent, we may take photographs of you in a clinical context if necessary for your treatment.

We may also collect information about your interactions with us, including your responses to patient surveys relating to service improvement.

We operate video surveillance systems in key thoroughfares at our facilities for the purposes of protecting the safety of our staff, patients and visitors.

How do we collect this information?

In most circumstances we will collect this information directly from you. If necessary, and where permitted by law, we may also collect information from third parties including: other healthcare professionals and referring clinicians; family members; government organisations and national records offices; funders; shared health portals (e.g. for transfer of electronic health records from Testsafe or radiology reports); and health software applications (e.g. for electronic prescribing of medications).

Who do we share your information with?

We may share your information with other healthcare providers and relevant agencies involved in your care.

In some circumstances, anonymous and aggregated personal information may also be transferred overseas or nationally for quality / clinical audit purposes to enable benchmarking to support the improvement of our services.

We treat your information with the utmost confidentiality, ensuring it is securely stored and accessed only by authorised personnel. You have the right to request access to your records and to correct any inaccuracies. With your consent, or where permitted by law, your information may also be shared with family members, support persons, or other agencies.

Providing information is optional. If you choose not to share any information requested then we may not be able to provide you with the best possible healthcare.

Website Terms and Conditions

Welcome to the ARO Website. By using this website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

We understand that visitors and users of this website are concerned about their privacy, and the confidentiality and security of any information that is provided. Some information is automatically collected whenever anybody accesses this website. You are also able to submit personal information via online forms. This includes identifiable information such as you name and contact details. We will only use this information for the purpose for which it was supplied. ARO does not sell, rent or lease information collected on this website to third parties unless required to by law.

When you visit this website our internet Service Provider’s standard web logs record anonymous information for statistical purposes only, including: date and time of your visit to the site, pages you accessed, type of browser you are using, referring site and internet address of the server accessing our site.

The ARO website uses ‘cookies’ to personalise your experience. These are text files that are stored on your computer by the web page server. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer.

Activity on this website may be recorded in order to improve the quality of the information provided, make changes to our website and provide general statistics regarding the use of the ARO website.

ARO secures your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. However, this website does not provide facilities for securely transmitting information across the internet. We take reasonable steps to ensure the security of all information that we collect, however no data transmission over the internet or information stored on servers accessible through the internet can be guaranteed to be fully secure. These activities are undertaken at your risk.

This privacy statement may change from time to time particularly as new rules, regulations and industry codes are introduced. We may also change this statement to reflect company and patient feedback.

If you have any queries about our privacy and security practices, please use the contact details found on this website

If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement or how we handle your personal information, please contact us at:

Privacy Officer

Auckland Radiation Oncology

98 Mountain Road

Epsom

Auckland,1023

admin@aro.co.nz

09 623 6046

Should you wish, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner on Freephone 0800 803 909 (or 09 302 8655 if you are calling from Auckland) or via email at enquiries@privacy.org.nz.

We may update this Privacy Statement to inform you of changes in how we collect and process your information in providing the services or changes in related laws. The date of last updated is at the top of this Privacy Statement.