Privacy & Confidentiality
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Policy of Note Taking
Progress notes are to be completed within the final 10 minutes of a child's session (50minutes face to face, and 10 minutes note taking). If sessions run overtime, they must be completed within a reasonable timeframe
Electronic notes are attached to each appointment within the clinical management system Splose including any photos taken of that session.
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Privacy & Confidentiality
Protect the Participant’s privacy and confidential information as per the Privacy Act 1988.
Store Participant information in a secure electronic management system (SPLOSE), that is password protected and has appropriate firewall protection.
Store paper participant information/forms in that participant's file and secured in a lockable filing cabinet
Inform the participant how to make a complaint and treat them fairly and impartially if they make a complaint. Complaints process found in Feedback and Complaints section
Client's information will be kept private and will not be shared, except under the following circumstance:
For the therapists education, such as for the use of clinical supervision. This may involve discussing client's clinical information with another health professional with the aim to improve the Client's clinical outcomes. The use of videos or photos will only be used with the client or client's representative's verbal or written consent.
For therapist education out of NDOT staff (external) will be deidentified. These external staff are still required to keep client information private and confidential and cannot share this with others. The use of videos or photos will only be used with the client or client's representative's verbal or written consent.
During clinical discussions with the client's wider multi-disciplinary team, as consented to through service agreement and/or written or verbal consent prior. Client or their representative will be notified to these meetings before they commence and have the right to attend these meetings.
In cases where it not safe for the participant, or the information required is kept
All clients are entitled to having the privacy, dignity, and health respected and upheld at all times.
For clients with certain disability needs, it may be an expected part of therapy to work on self-care and hygiene goals such as dressing, toileting and bathing. Consent must be obtained prior or during sessions verbally and within the client in the service agreement, if clients require adult assistance or supervision for these tasks and consents to the Provider assisting. If consent is not given to the provider to assist the client in these tasks, a parent/guardian must be present at all times during the sessions to ensure that if continence or accidents as such occur, the client's health and wellbeing is the responsibility of the clients parent/guardian. If there is no consent for providers to assist, and parent/guardian refuse to be present, the session is cancelled and the full cancellation fee applies.
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Updated: 28/01/2025
We at NeurodiversOTy do our best to prevent confidential information to be shared accidentally to other parties. We acknowledge the accidents may happen despite the fail safe's we have in place. We ensure that email contacts are uniquely identifiable to prevent wrong emails to be shared or accidentally sent to the wrong email. Physical documents and notes/planning is packed away and not left in common areas where other clients have access to. Electronic data and session notes are kept on a secure clinical management system called 'Splose'.
Steps when there is a breach of Privacy:
Notify all parties involved of breach
Notify supervisor and Director
Take steps to remediate breach of privacy and notify affected families of such, if applicable.
Fill out Incident Report form including time stamps.
Review and update polcies and procedures as necessary
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Use of Videos and Pictures
For clients under the age of 18, photos and videos may be taken during sessions of the client to send to the clients' parents/guardians to give an update on the session if they were not able to be present. These may also be stored in the clients electronic management file, and deleted from the device used to take the photo within a reasonable timeframe.
The use of videos or photos may be used for clinical education purposes with the clients therapist and their supervisor. Consent will be gained prior to it's use. Purpose of this is to improve a client's therapy care and achievement of goals.
Therapists cannot share these photos externally from NeurodiversOTy without prior written consent from the client or their parent/guardian.
Written consent must be gained by the client or the client's representative if pictures or videos are to be used for marketing purposes. The client's dignity and privacy must always be upheld in these situations.
Clients or their parent/guardians cannot take photos of therapists during or out of sessions without their verbal or written consent beforehand, and must state the intention of these photos ie memories, social media etc.
Clients or their parent/guardians cannot take photos of therapists during or out of sessions, or post these photos on any social media or network without their written consent beforehand
Management & Disposal of Client Videos and Pictures
Reasons for Pictures & Videos
Therapists may take photos or videos of clients only with written or verbal consent from the child and/or the parent/guardian. Therapist may take videos or pictures for the purposes of:
For parent education purposes
To update parents on clients' sessions where they are not present
For creating the clients' home program
For inclusion in the clients' reports, progress notes, or support letters
For uploading to client's Splose profile
For clients' own learning and feedback
For clinical supervision within NeurodiversOTy or the therapists external supervisor
Disposal of Pictures and videos
Once therapists have sent, or used the pictures/videos for the above reasons, they will delete those pictures/videos within a reasonable timeframe from their devices and delete from the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder.