Facilitating Access to General Practice Data for Research in Australia: The Need for Legal Reform
Presenter: Dr Carolyn Adams, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University, Australia (15 mins + 5 Q&A)
The drive to more effectively access, use and link primary care data in Australia is pressing. These data resources have the potential to improve performance across the entire health system through more effective population health planning and monitoring, health system evaluation, policy development, and research. General practice data are central to these developments.
However, the existing legal and policy framework regulating access to general practice data continues to raise concerns, and some specific barriers, to the appropriate sharing and use of the data. General practice data are regulated by a complex system of privacy legislation and common law and equitable duties of confidentiality. The legal obligations of privacy and confidentiality are critical to support public confidence in the health care system and to protect the relationship of trust between general practitioners and their patients.
This presentation will report on qualitative research conducted with legal and policy making stakeholders across Australia in 2025, exploring these concerns and the views of stakeholders on how they might best be addressed. Is it possible to create a system of sharing and linking general practice data that recognises and supports the relationship of trust between general practitioners and their patients? What elements are needed in a best practice regulatory framework and what legal reform is required to realise these goals?