Privacy Policy

You are not obligated to share your information, however, withholding it may affect the quality of care you receive.

‍How do we collect personal information from you?‍

• Directly from you when you sign up for Tend Health services.
• From your consultation. Your healthcare professional will record relevant health information from your consultation in your notes which will be shared with others involved in delivering your healthcare services (including Tend doctors and nurses administrators and other members involved in your care).
• From you, when you message our care team.
• From your nominated bank account (account name, number, type, balance and address information only)
• From your existing registered General Practitioner - only if you decide to enrol with Tend Health as your primary care provider and we transfer your health records.
• From your device when you use Tend
• From other companies such as credit reporting agencies to verify your address and identity
  Public sources

Why are we collecting your personal information?

• To fulfil our obligations to you and provide Tend Health primary healthcare services
• To meet our legal obligations
• To improve our services to you


How is my personal information being used?

• If your practice is contracted to a Primary Health Organisation (PHO), the PHO may use your health information for clinical and administrative purposes including obtaining subsidised funding for you.
• Your District Health Board (DHB) uses your health information to provide treatment and care, and to improve the quality of its services.
• A clinical audit may be conducted by a qualified healthcare professional to review the quality of services provided to you. They may also view health records if the audit involves checking on health matters.
• When you choose to register in a health programme (eg immunisation or breast screening), relevant health information may be shared with other health agencies.
• The Ministry of Health uses your demographic information to assign a unique number to you on the NHI. This NHI number will help identify you when you use health services.
• The Ministry of Health holds health information to measure how well health services are delivered and to plan and fund future health services. Auditors may occasionally conduct financial audits of your healthcare professional. The auditors may review your records and may contact you to check that you received those services.
• Notification of births and deaths to the Births, Deaths and Marriages register may be performed electronically to streamline a person’s interactions with the governmentwith government.
• If you have a health insurer we may need to share some of your information with them in order to facilitate billing, however we will not share any details of your health information with them without your consent.
• Your employer may offer Tend as an employee benefit. If you are using Tend in this way - we may share the minimum information required to ensure your use of the service is charged appropriately.
• Your identity details may be shared with third parties that help us carry out our service (for example, to verify your identity or complete payments).
• Your contact information may be shared with third party marketing partners (such as Google, Facebook and programmatic display) for marketing purposes.
• Anonymous statistical information about Tend usage information to reputable third parties for analytical purposes.


Where is your personal information stored and or processed?

• We store all our data (including your information) on a secure Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform and we use Google GSuite applications.
• The primary copy of your health records are stored in our Patient Management System (PMS) Indici.
• We protect our data with all reasonable technical and process controls.

How do you manage the health information of dependents and young adults?

• If you are under the age of 16 and wish to register with Tend, your account will usually be linked to your parent or guardian's account.
• Parents (and legal guardians) also have some rights to access their children's/dependent’s health information, up until they turn 16.
• Usually your parents and/or guardians will be able to access and view your medical information. However, there may be times where we need to limit the information shared with parents and/or guardians in order to respect the confidentiality and best interests of the young adult.
• As a young adult you may specifically ask us not to share your health care information with your parents and/or guardians and we will assess these requests on a case by case basis in accordance with the Health Information Privacy Code and Privacy Act.


What are my rights to my information and keeping it accurate?

• We’re required to keep your information accurate, up-to-date and relevant for your treatment and care.
• You have the right to access and correct your health information
• You have the right to see and request a copy of your health information
• You don’t have to explain why you’re requesting that information, but may be required to provide proof of your identity, however you may have to pay an administration fee
• You can ask for health information about you to be corrected and our people will help you with this. If our clinical team chooses not to change that information, you can have this noted on your file
• You can exercise these rights at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under “Contact us” below.

How long will my information be kept for?

• We will retain your information in accordance with our obligations under New Zealand law. For the most part this means that we will keep your information securely for at least 10 years after the date of your last appointment.
• If you want to change practice we will transfer your records for you.


Special information for South Island patients only

• Please note that this site is contributing to, and accessing healthcare information from, HealthOne.
• HealthOne is a South Island based secure electronic record that allows registered healthcare providers directly involved in your healthcare, to quickly access information such as your test results, allergies, medications, GP summaries and hospital information. HealthOne strictly adheres to the principles of the Privacy Act 2020 as well as the Rules set out in the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. Access is only possible via an approved highly secure healthcare information network which is regularly audited and tested. Privacy auditing is used to check that only those directly involved in your care are accessing your information.
• To find out more about HealthOne please visit https://healthone.org.nz/. Please note that you are entitled to restrict the sharing of your healthcare records by contacting 0508 837 872 or emailing HealthOne.privacy@pegasus.health.nz
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Complaints
If you wish to make a complaint about how your information is collected or used, please talk to your healthcare provider in the first instance. If you are still unhappy with the response you can call the Office of the Privacy Commissioner toll-free on 0800 803 909, as they can investigate this further.
Cookies (and similar technologies)


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We use cookies and similar tracking technologies across the Websites and Apps we own or operate to deliver the services we provide to you. We also use other tracking technologies like web beacons (sometimes called “tracking beacons” or “clear gifs”) and local or device storage.
When we say Website or App we are referring to any websites, web services or Apps we own, publish or operate to deliver our services to you.


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A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your device when you visit a website or use an App, this enables you to be identified when you return to that website or App in the future. Tracking software allows us to collect information across different devices and across different sessions, e.g. so that you don’t have to resubmit information each time you log on.


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Web beacons are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enable us to recognise when someone has visited the Website or opened an email that we have sent them.
Local or device storage is a mechanism provided by your device or browser that lets us store small amounts of data on your device. This lets us optimise the use of your network, and store other information which may include tracking identifiers.


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Cookies help us to do things like operate our Website and Apps, enhance and customise your experience across our Website and Services, perform analytics and deliver advertising and marketing that’s relevant to you.


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There are also cookies set by third parties across our Website and Apps. Third party cookies enable third party features or functionality to be provided on or through our Websites and Services, such as advertising, interactive content and analytics. They also enable us to use advertising networks to manage our advertising on other websites. The parties that set these third party cookies can recognize your computer both when it visits the website in question and also when it visits certain other websites.


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You can change the cookies settings on your device, including so that you are offered whether or not you want to accept cookies. If you do not accept cookies, then that may mean that our website does not work properly and that the services we provided to you are impacted.


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Changes to our Privacy Policy
This document sets out our current Privacy Policy. We may review this policy from time to time and will notify you of any changes by posting an updated version on our website.


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Contact us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer
Attention: Tend Privacy Email: hello@tend.nz

Policy Updates - August 2023

• Addition of HealthOne information for South Island patients

Policy Updates - October 2021

• Addition of HealthOne information for South Island patients
• Adjusted format for easier readability.
• Addition to policy notifying that your contact information may be shared with third party marketing partners (such as Google, Facebook and programmatic display) for marketing purposes.
• Notification that any further updates to the policy will be done by posting an updated version on our website.