Your privacy is important.
The Medical Specialist Directory (MSD) is an online service promoting specialist medical services to GPs. The Medical Specialist Directory is sponsored by Local GP Networks or Divisions, and maintained by Infoxchange. It is operated through www.specialistsdirectory.com.au.
In this policy these parties are jointly referred to as “MSD”.
This statement outlines MSD's policy on how we manage the personal information we hold about our Members, Users and others.
Why does MSD display MEMBER information?
The Specialists Directory is a private network linking MEMBER specialists with local GPs. MEMBER information is protected behind User Name and Password security. GPs access this information through the MEMBERS information portal.
Our business is to promote MEMBERS information about their practices and services. This information is given freely by our MEMBERS to be circulated to Users interested in those services.
For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, Medical Specialists, providing information on their expertise and clinical practice are referred to as “MEMBERS”, while GPs who access the information in order to refer patients to appropriate local specialists are referred to as “USERS”. Other parties accessing the online directory site will be regarded as “VISITORS”. This includes non members applying for membership.
NON MEMBER information has been collected from the public domain purely to assist NON MEMBERs with their registration process. This information is not displayed to nor promoted to GPs.
Privacy
All of the information in the directory is in the public domain and freely supplied by MEMBERS for the general use of USERS.
MSD is bound by the National Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 in relation to the handling of personal information. This is important to our MEMBERS, as we are obliged to protect the integrity of our MEMBERS data and not distribute any of our MEMBER information to third parties for profit or gain.
Personal information
To provide the information and service needed by our USERS we need to collect personal information from MEMBERS as part of their paid registration.
We have also acquired certain information from the public domain. This is collected purely for the purposes of assisting potential MEMBERs with their registration process and is not displayed to GPs in the GP search area.
We are not responsible for the accuracy of the third party MEMBER or NON MEMBER information. For transcription services See Terms & conditions clause 2.2.
We strongly recommend that you check your listing online at least quarterly to guarantee that your information remains correct and has not been altered. This could be due to actions of ex staff or disenfranchised staff through malicious or other intentions. While the site is fully protected from external third party entry through password word and user name; your user name and password information could nonetheless, be known to persons within your employ.
We also recommend that you consider changing your password from time to time.
We strongly recommend that you check your entry information every time you re-subscribe to guarantee the information is still accurate and in accordance with your current status.
Use of information
We collect information on you and your clinical practice that is relevant to USERS. This includes your name, address, telephone number, qualifications, expertise, schedule, preferences and practice information.
When you are online, we collect information regarding the pages within our network that you visit and what you click on. We only collect this information for the purposes of providing our goods or services and if the law requires us to, we will seek your consent to collect it.
We use your information to provide a service to USERS, to fulfill administrative functions associated with these services, to enter into contracts with you or third parties and for marketing and client relationship purposes.
We may use personally identifiable information in aggregate form to improve our services including our Web sites and make them more responsive to the needs of our USERS. This statistical compilation and analysis of information may also be used by MSD or provided as a summary report for marketing, advertising or research purposes.
Use by third parties
We may disclose your information to service providers and/or contractors from time to time to help us to provide and market our goods and services to you.
We may also share your information with third parties who could provide further opportunity for your services. If we do this, we require these parties to protect your information in the same way we do.
We do not sell or allow to be sold your information to third parties including advertisers.
Use of aggregate data
We may collect certain non-personal information to optimise our goods and services including information of your computer systems (e.g., the identity of your Internet browser, the type of operating system you use, your IP address and the domain name of your Internet service provider). We may use such non-personal information for internal purposes, including but not limited to improving the content of our sites.
Security
MSD strives to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personally identifiable information of third parties. We use a variety of physical and electronic security measures including restricting physical access to our offices, firewalls and secure databases to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised use or disclosure.
Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure.
Accessing your personal information
You can access most of the information we hold about you and make changes online using your Username and Password. This is your information.
You may at anytime update, edit or remove your listing. There are conditions that apply if your remove or misuse your listing.
Cookies
Cookies are data that a web site transfers to an individual’s computer hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies can facilitate a user’s ongoing access to and use of a site. They allow us to track usage patterns and to compile data that can help us improve our content and functionality. If you do not want information collected through the use of Cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the Cookie feature. But you should note that Cookies may be necessary to provide you with features such as merchandise transactions or registered services.
Other things you should know about privacy on the Internet
Please be careful and responsible whenever you are using the Internet. You as an individual are responsible for the security of and access to your own computer.
Remember to close your browser when you have finished your session. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet café.
You are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your username and passwords and account information.
MSD's Privacy Policy Statement will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and technology, changes to our operations and practices and to make sure it remains appropriate to the changing environment. Any information we hold will be governed by the most current MSD Privacy Policy Statement.
For further information
Should you have a complaint concerning your information privacy or if you would like more information about our approach to privacy, please contact our Directory Officer at Infoxchange on 03 9418 7488 or email info@healthservicesdirectory.com.au
