Privacy Notice
Here's a quick rundown of important things you need to know about privacy and your data:
Welcome to Badger Notes. This provides you with secure access to a summary of your maternity records and baby records.
Shared Care Record
Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) is supporting a national maternity record system (called the Perinatal Spine). This will enable health care provision whenever and wherever pregnant people and their babies need care. Participating health care providers, in the community and in hospital and birthing facilities will be able to securely and swiftly share the related records of care.
This shared care record has been in place since 2014 and is now expanding to welcome more pregnant people and their healthcare providers throughout New Zealand.
Security for your Badger Notes app
Please take care of your login and password as this is how you keep your records safe. It is your choice if you wish to share a view of your records with anyone else, such as your whānau.
Urgent clinical care
Please contact your health care provider directly if you need urgent clinical care.
About your privacy
If you want to find out more about the Perinatal Spine shared care record used by your healthcare provider please look at the full Privacy Statement here. You can find details about the 'do not disclose' process in this full Privacy Statement.
If you wish to see all information held about you, or ask for any correction to be made, contact your health care provider.
If you have any privacy related questions, or consider your privacy may have been breached, you may contact Te Whatu Ora, as it is kaitiaki (custodian) for the national shared care record. Contact details are:
- Email: hnzprivacy@health.govt.nz
- Or write to the Privacy Officer Health New Zealand - Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand, PO Box 793, Wellington 6140.
As a pregnant woman you can:
- Complete a prebooking questionnaire containing social and medical information, for example details of allergies/special requirements, and add these to your electronic medical record by submitting them using the app/website if your care provider has enabled this. This is optional - it will not affect your care if you choose not to.
- Follow your 'Personal Care Plan' through each week of your pregnancy to keep track of planned events and know what to expect as your pregnancy progresses.
- Keep a personal pregnancy diary and upload photos for your exclusive personal use.
- View your 'Maternity Record' - these are extracts from the medical notes recorded during your Midwife/hospital visits.
- Access the pregnancy leaflets recommended by your care provider.
- Use the 'Conversations' feature to submit questions and thoughts about your antenatal, birth and postnatal care that your midwife can review with you at your next visit.
- Submit blood pressure or pulse oximetry readings if your midwife has requested you to use Badger Notes for this purpose.
- Provide 'Feedback' to your maternity care provider where your care provider has enabled this.
- Generate a 'one-time access code' for your GP to access the data in the 'maternity record' part of the app (this does NOT include access to your personal diary or photos).
- Receive email or push notification reminders about maternity appointments where these are available (this varies between midwifery care providers). This is an optional setting within the profile screen of the app/website - by default it is turned off.
- Receive maternity care push notifications from your care provider. These include personal notifications set by your midwife and general notifications relating to your maternity care including any research projects your maternity provider is participating in that are relevant to your care.
As the parent of a baby who has been transferred to a neonatal care unit you can:
- Use the app/website to view data entered into your baby's electronic patient record by the medical staff looking after your baby. You can view photos, videos and comments about your baby's progress as recorded by the staff at the neonatal unit.
- As a parent, you can give permission to relatives to allow them access to your baby's information using the app.
Only authorised medical staff who are responsible for your care, or that of your baby, will have access to the data you provide using the app/website. The contents of your personal diary and photos you upload are yours alone and cannot be accessed by anyone other than yourself; the medical team and any GP for whom you generate a one-time access code cannot see this information.
System C Healthcare Ltd, who provide the app/website as part of the National Maternity Record (NMR) programme coordinated by the Ministry of Health, will use your email address and phone number to allow you access to the system. To ensure the safety of your medical information System C Healthcare Ltd maintains an audit trail of access which includes details of user credentials, IP address, device type and access times.
Your mobile phone number will be used by our international communications supplier 'Twilio' to send you a text message containing a verification code to allow you secure access to your maternity notes via the app/website. This supplier is bound by data protection legislation and will not use your mobile number for any other purpose.
To ensure availability of this service System C Healthcare uses crash analytics software provided by Microsoft to monitor performance of the app. This allows problems with the app to be identified and resolved quickly. This information is anonymous and does not identify you in any way.
This app/website may contain links to third party websites; you should review the privacy statements of third party websites so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your data. System C Healthcare Ltd is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of the System C Healthcare Ltd and System C Healthcare Ltd family of websites.
The data passing to and from the care records is encrypted using 256 bit encryption and sent via HTTPS over the internet. If you are using the app, a view of your information is temporarily saved to your device while you are logged in; this data is removed from the device when you click 'Logout' via the profile or passcode screens. Access to the app/website is password controlled, it is your responsibility to keep passwords secret and use a device screen lock. All the data you see using this service is held on secure servers used by the care provider for the electronic medical records.
Access continues until you request access to be cancelled, the service is rendered obsolete or the medical records reach the end of the retention period. You can manage your access using the Profile screen with the app/website. For information on how long your medical records are kept, contact the medical records team at your care provider.
The data viewed or submitted via the app/website is stored as part of your medical records or those of your baby. Pregnancy diary information and photographs are stored with the medical records but access is specially restricted. To exercise your rights under the data protection legislation, for example to access or obtain a copy of your information or request something to be corrected please contact the medical records team at your care provider.
From time to time we may update this privacy notice, you can check for updates at any time by following the privacy notice link within the app or on the website.
Appointment reminders and push notifications can be enabled from the profile menu, under 'settings' in the 'Personalisation' page. You can change your preferences at any time by editing these settings.
Your care provider may offer appointment reminders via email or push notification. Not all midwifery providers offer appointment reminders in any or all formats and those which do may revoke this service at any time so you should not rely on receiving a reminder, even if you have had one for a previous appointment with the same provider. System C Healthcare is unable to warrant that the service will be uninterrupted and therefore does not accept liability for missed appointments resulting from non-receipt of a reminder.
Maternity appointment reminders may contain details of the appointment e.g. time, date and location of the appointment.
Push notifications are messages which pop up on your device when you are logged into the app, even if you don't have the app open. You can opt in to receive 2 different types of push notification: appointment reminders (where enabled by your care provider) and maternity care messages, including important messages about your Badger Notes app. You can change your preferences at any time using the profile settings menu in the app. If you wish to receive push notifications you will need to enable your notification settings on your mobile device. Push notifications are managed by our Microsoft Notification Hub in Australia; this service has access to a unique device/user identifier but to no other personal identifiable information. From time to time you may receive service messages solely for the purpose of administering the application.
For Android devices, Microsoft Azure sends push notifications via Google Firebase. Firebase will store data in Google Analytics for reasons such as improving Google products and services.
If you opt-in to receive emails and push notifications, you are accepting the risks inherent in communication over the internet. There is some risk that internet communication can be intercepted in transmission or misdirected resulting in the contents of a message being disclosed to unauthorised third parties.