Forté Health Privacy Statement

The purposes we collect your personal and health information for

We collect information to ensure you receive high quality health services focused on your individual needs.This includes to:

• ensure we provide you with treatment and procedures you consent to, care and advice
• receive any referrals and any information from your referring provider that may be relevant to the treatment and care provided at Forté 
• provide you with information about admission, inpatient and discharge procedures, fees, and other services relevant to your care and treatment
• support and enable safe and appropriate diagnostic testing and treatment 
• support the administration and management of our services including charging, billing and debt collection
• communicate with, and meet our obligations to your insurer or the funder of your care at Forté Health if your care is funded by a third party (e.g. to obtain pre-approval from your insurer or third party funder such as ACC, Health New Zealand (HNZ), provide necessary information to ACC, HNZ or funder)  
• communicate effectively with, and connect you with, other health professionals and health providers that are involved in your care and treatment to ensure continutity of care
• investigate, manage, and respond to any concerns or complaints
• maintain and improve the services we provide including quality assssurance and monitoring, audit, reseacrh and training purposes

(collectively the Purposes)

What information we collect about you

The information we collect about you includes, but is not limited to, your name, date of birth, gender, ethnicity, NHI, address, contact details, invoicing details, and details about your third party funder where that is relevant. We also collect information relevant to your general health and lifestyle, health history, symptoms and diagnosis, and care and treatment that will help us provide services to you. 

How we collect your information

We collect information directly from you when you fill in our forms, provide information on Personifycare, and attend Forté Health. 

We also collect information about you from HealthOne (see further information on page 2), your referring specialist, and laboratory and other diagnostic services relevant to your episode of care at Forté Health. We may also collect information from your general practitioner (GP), other specilaists or health providers providing services to you where this is relevant and necessary for us to provide safe and effective services to you. Where relevant we may collect information about you from any third party funder funding your care and treatment (including Health New Zealand if we are providing services to you under a contract with Health New Zealand).  

This information is stored securely in Forté Health’s information management and patient information management system. If you do not want us to collect your information from any of these persons or organisations you must tell us.

You do not have to provide information requested or allow us to collect information from other health professionals, health services, or funders, but if you choose not to we may not be able to provide appropriate services to support your care and treatment.

Using or sharing your information

We may use or share your information for the Purposes set out on page one of this Statement.  We share relevant information with HealthOne and Personifycare (explained further below),and other health professionals and health providers involved in providing health services to you to ensure you receive safe, effective, and coordinated health services.  If your treatment is funded by a third party we share relevant information with the funder.So,if Health New Zealand has funded your treatment, we will share relevant information with Health New Zealand. Please refer to Health New Zealand’s privacy statement at https://info.health.nz/privacy  

If you do not want us to share your information with other health professionals, providers, or funders involved in your treatment and healthcare you need to tell us. 

HealthOne and Health Connect South are South Island based secure electronic record systems that allow registered health professionals directly involved in your healthcare, to quickly access information such as your test results, allergies, medications, GP summaries and hospital information. These systems comply with the rules in the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. Health Connect South is a Health New Zealand system used across all South Island, HNZ hospitals.

HealthOne access is only possible via an approved highly secure healthcare information network which is regularly audited and tested to ensure only those directly involved in your care are accessing your information. For more information on HealthOne, and if you wish to restrict sharing of your healthcare records via HealthOne, please go to: https://healthone.org.nz   

Personifycare is a secure digital system for communicating with patients before, during and after their treatment or episode of care. It allows us to provide more timely procedure-specific instructions, pre-admission requirements, and day-of-surgery details directly to patients' mobile devices. Patients can complete health assessment and consent for treatment information we require for your treatment or episode of care on their electronic device. All information is uploaded into your clinical record. More information on Personifycare is available at: https://personifycare.com/  

We will not use or disclose your personal or health information for other purposes unless we are required to or permitted to by law. 

Storage and security

Forté Health has systems and procedures in place to protect your information from misuse and loss, unauthorised access, and unauthorised modification or disclosure. Your information can only be accessed by authorised personnel involved in providing services to you, or in the course of monitoring these services or responding to concerns or complaints.

Retention of information

We are required by law to store health information for at least 10 years. We may store information for a longer period where this is considered good practice to ensure relevant health records remain available or where the information remains necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

Accuracy of the information

Before using or disclosing your information, Forté Health takes reasonable steps to check that it is up-to-date, complete, relevant and not misleading.

Right to access and seek correction of Information

You may request access to the information that we hold about you. We will need to verify that it is you requesting the information before we can provide it. If you think any of the information is incorrect, you can ask for it to be corrected. 

Privacy complaints or concerns

If you want to know more about how we collect, use and may share your information or you have any concerns about how we have collected, used or shared your information you can contact us at: Support@fortehealth.co.nz.  If you are still unhappy, you can complain to the Privacy Commissioner.

Privacy breach

We take the confidentiality and security of your information seriously and have processes to keep your information protected. In the event of a privacy breach we will act promptly to minimise any damage and to comply with all our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020.

We may update this privacy statement from time to time.