Health Professionals access to their patient’s hospital records

If you’re a registered health professional such as a GP, you can access patient’s healthcare records provided you have your patient’s consent.

There a number of ways you can do this:

1. The Health Provider Portal/ The Viewer
2. My Health Records (MHR)
3. Medical Records departments (Release of Information)
4. GP Connect – Pathology results sent to your practice

The Health Provider Portal/ The Viewer

Queensland GPs, specialists, practice nurses, midwives, paramedics, pharmacists and optometrists can now access much of their patient’s Queensland Health hospital visits, correspondence and results online via the Health Provider Portal (HPP) also known as Queensland Health’s The Viewer.

Information in the HPP from Queensland Health facilities includes:

• pathology results
• radiology (except ultrasound, echos & some MRI reports)
• medication lists
• inpatient discharge summaries
• Gastroenterology reports
• Emergency Department notes including Virtual ED & Virtual Ward records
• Outpatient department letters
• upcoming appointments & accepted referrals

and much more.

My Health Records (MHR)

Over 90 % of Queenslanders have a My Health Record.

MHR benefits include:

• GPs can access MHR from within your GP practice software so no login required.
• may contain community pathology & radiology results requested by other specialists and GPs to help continuity of care.

Private Specialists can also access their patients My Health Record either via conformant practice software e.g. Best Practice, Medical Director, Genie etc or via the online National Provider Portal provided they have their patient’s consent.

Video on how private specialists can use my Health Record.

Queensland Health records uploaded include:

• Hospital Pathology results since 2018
• Most Radiology reports since 2018
• some medication lists since 2021
• Queensland Health Discharge Summaries since late 2013.

Community providers:

• Shared health summaries
• Community prescriptions & dispense records
• Advanced Care planning documents
• Immunisation records
• Most Pathology providers
• Some radiology providers

Many pathology and radiology providers can now automatically upload results to your patient’s My Health Record so that both you, your patient and hospital specialists in outpatients or the emergency department can see these results. This helps to improve continuity of care.

If you are unable to see your patient’s community provider results in MHR, please check with your provider that they are uploading to MHR. This can be particularly helpful when a patient has moved from another GP practice to see previous results.

RACGP also provides useful information on how to get access if it isn’t already available on your GP practice RACGP – Getting started with My Health Record– a guide for general practice staff

There are a series of recorded videos on how to use My Health Record.

Medical Records departments (Release of Information)

If you are unable to find the information you need in the Health Provider Portal or My Health Record, practices can contact the Release of Information team at each hospital facility.

Remember you must have patient consent to access your patient’s information.

How to request information

If you are the patient’s registered GP at the hospital, then medical records can be sent to the patient’s GP practice. However, if you are the patient’s new GP (not registered on the hospital database as their GP), patient consent will be required to allow release of information.

Please do not request all medical records for a patient as some of these can be hundreds of pages long. Please be specific with the information you require. For example, echo report from July 2024 or discharge summary from 10 June 2023.

Please request information as soon as possible as there may be some delays in the requested information being received by your practice based on the volume of requests.

Urgent requests:

GPs should contact the appropriate Release of Information (ROI) team via phone to request urgent (same day) information.

Non urgent requests:

Please complete and send the hospital’s request for information form via email including your practice details to the appropriate facility ROI email address as below. Alternatively, please send a request on letterhead with patient signed consent to the fax number below, this will generally be actioned within 2-3 business days.

How will this information be sent back to GP practices?

Please specify whether you would like to receive the requested information via email or fax. If email is selected, requested patient identifiable information will be sent via an encrypted email delivery system called Kiteworks. Further information about Kiteworks can be found here.

GP Connect – Pathology results sent to your practice

As well as seeing pathology results on Health Provider Portal and My Health Record, GP practices can request results to be sent securely to their practice via Queensland Pathology’s GP Connect service.

GP Connect allows practices to call 1300 856 344 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday to request results to be sent electronically to the practice. If you don’t currently have GP Connect established you will need to completed the Connection Agreement Form which can be found on Pathology Queensland’s GP Connect website.