Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System: Patient Information Leaflet

1) What is the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System?

The Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) is the first national Maternity and neonatal information system developed for use in Ireland. The system replaced the individual maternity information systems that operated in each of the 19 public hospitals providing maternity services.

2) What hospitals are using the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System? The Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) is used by the 16 HSE managed hospitals providing maternity services and the three Voluntary maternity hospitals (Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, the National Maternity Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital)

3) Who has legal responsibility for the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System? The HSE and the 3 voluntary hospitals (i.e. the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, the National Maternity Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital). Each Voluntary Hospital is the data controller for data collected at their hospital. The National Maternity hospital is the data controller for data collected at the NMH.

4) What information pertaining to me will be kept on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS)? The Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System will store the following information belonging to you:

Personal details such as your name, address, date of birth, contact telephone number, next of kin

Your General Practitioners (GP) name, address and contact telephone number.

Referral letters from your GP and/or other health care professionals.

Information about your health and lifestyle

Information about any medical treatment and care you may have received in the past and any planned treatment including those received from external sources.

Medical test results, notes and reports about your health

Medical images (for example x-rays, scans etc) which may have been taken as part of your treatment and care including past treatment/care

Clinical photographs or videos which may have been taken as part of your treatment and care including past treatments/care

5) What will my information kept on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-

CMS) be used for? All information stored about you will be available across all HSE and Voluntary Hospitals that have the same system and it will be used for the following purposes:

To help plan and provide your treatment and care.

To communicate with you during their treatment and care.

To record your treatment and care including any past treatment/care

To ensure all your information is available if you need to be referred to another health care professional or to another part of the health service.

To ensure your concerns can be properly investigated if a complaint is raised.

For administrative and billing purposes.

To help train and teach health care students and staff

For legal purposes in the event of any legal proceedings

For the purposes of local clinical audit onsite

Within your chosen hospital for general administration, management and reporting processes

Relevant summary information about you and other patients may anonymized and be used for the following purposes:

To help plan and assess current maternity services and neonatal at an individual hospital or national level, as applicable.

Anonymized data for collation of Statistics at National and local level e.g. number of births, Geographical and lifestyle data.

For service planning quality assurance programmes measuring outcome for Maternity services.

6) Will my information be used for any other purposes other than those listed in question 5?

If the HSE, the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, the National Maternity Hospital or the Rotunda Hospital wishes to use your information for any additional purposes that involves the use of data that has not been anonymized they will seek your informed consent

7) How long will my information be kept on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System

(MN-CMS)? Your information will only be kept on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) for as long as is legally required. The current legal retention periods for your information are recorded in the HSE Record Retention Policy and a copy of this is published on the HSE website (http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/3/acutehospitals/hospitals/ulh/staff/resources/pppgs/rm/recret2013.pdf) Your information kept on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) will be updated at each of your visits to the hospital and when it is no longer legally required it shall be permanently deleted in accordance with Data Protection regulations and disposed of in a secure manner.

8) Where will my information be stored? All your information collected by the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) is held on the HSE’s own secure network and within the HSE Data Centre locations.

9) How will my information be kept confidential? The HSE, the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, the National Maternity Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital have legal obligations under the terms of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 and the General Data Protection Regulation to ensure all personal data which they collects and

process belonging to their patients is kept confidential and secure. As the MN-CMS is hosted on the HSE network, the HSE shall be solely responsible for the following:

a) The security of the network; b) The management and security of the servers hosting the MN-CMS; c) The scheduled backup of the MN-CMS and the management and security of all backup

media. To comply with their legal obligations the HSE, the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, the National Maternity Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital have individually and jointly implemented a series of human, organisational and technological controls to protect against the unauthorised or unlawful processing and the accidental loss, destruction, damage, alteration and disclosure of its patient data stored on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS). For further information, please contact us.

10) Who will have access to my information and why? Any hospital using the MN-CMS will have full access to your patient record however it will only be available to others on a strict ‘need to know’ basis. For example, the health care professionals and the administrative staff within the hospital which is providing your treatment and care will have access to your information. However in certain situations your information may be shared with other health care professionals and staff from other health care facilities, or other parties, for example:

a) Referrals: You are transferred from one maternity hospital to another maternity hospital b) Second opinion: The health care professionals providing your treatment and care wish to seek

advice regarding your treatment from other more senior health care professionals based at another hospital or healthcare facility.

c) After care: As part of your treatment and care, you may need support at home, such as a visit from a public health nurse, or social worker.

d) Discharge notifications: Your General Practitioner (GP) will receive a summary of your treatment and care.

e) Notifiable diseases: Under the Infectious Diseases Regulations 1981, and subsequent amendments, we are legally required to notify the Health Protection Surveillance Centre if you are diagnosed with a notifiable infectious disease.

f) Private Health Insurance: In the case of insured patients, we can share relevant information about you with your health insurance provider so we can get paid for your treatment and care.

g) Order of a Court: We can share your information in response to a court order or a subpoena.

11) Can I request a copy of my information and who accessed my info? Yes, patients may use the Freedom of Information Acts, Data Protection Acts or the General Data

Protection Regulation to request a copy of their information which is kept on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS). Patients who received their treatment and care at the National Maternity Hospital and who wish to request a copy of their information can find further information on his subject on the National Maternity Hospital website at: http://www.nmh.ie

12) If I think that some of my information is incorrect, can I ask to have it corrected? Yes, if you think that some of the information kept about you on the Maternity and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) is incorrect, you can contact the relevant hospital where you received your treatment and care and request that this is corrected.