Frequently asked questions
More information for patients and clinicians.
For patients
What is Your Health Summary?
Your Health Summary isa secure database which holds a summary of your health record.
What is it used for?
If, for some reason you need to visit a healthcare provider that is not part of your general practice, they can provide you with safer healthcare by having access to a summary of your health record. Ultimately it means you can continue to get the very best care if you cannot get to your regular practice or need urgent health care elsewhere.
Why do we need to have this?
This information gives another approved doctor or health professional information about your medication, allergies and any conditions that may affect your care when you cannot see your regular GP. It makes sure tests are not repeated unnecessarily and better decisions based on having a fuller picture of your health.
Is every GP clinic in Auckland part of this?
Most GP clinics across Metro Auckland participate in Your Health Summary, and all clinics are encouraged to activate it. The initiative is endorsed by Primary Health Organisations (PHOs) and Health New Zealand as an important way to support safer, more informed patient care.
How long has Your Health Summary been operating?
Your Health Summary was introduced during the COVID-19 period, following many years of planning and collaboration between primary care providers and Health New Zealand. Similar shared health summary systems also operate in some other parts of the country under different names, but they are all based on the same core principles of securely sharing key clinical information to support patient care.
Can I see what information is held about me in the Your Health Summary record?
Your Health Summary Record is only available to approved clinicians. You can also request a copy of your record from Your Health Summary. Your Health Summary will validate your identity and then provide a copy to you as an encrypted pdf.
Can my information be changed?
Your Health Summary is based on information from your medical centre and provides timely information to other healthcare providers involved in your care. Information within Your Health Summary cannot be changed directly. If relevant information is changed or updated in the medical centre, then Your Health Summary will be changed.
Is my information safe?
Yes – the information is held securely and can only be accessed by approved, registered health professionals.
What information can they see?
The information is a summary of your medications, medical conditions, allergies, immunisations, laboratory results, radiology reports, and clinic letters. It does not include consultation notes.
Can I stop my information going into Your Health Summary?
Yes – you can choose to opt off Your Health Summary. If you do this, health professionals will not be able to access your summary information when providing your care. In some situations this may result in delays, for example if tests need to be repeated. Your care may also be affected if the treating clinician does not have access to up-to-date information about your long-term conditions, regular medications, or allergies.
How do I opt off?
Please email us at [email protected] with your full name, Date of Birth, Postal Address, National Health Index number (if known) and the Practice at which you are enrolled and let us know that you would like to opt off.
Can I opt someone else off?
You can opt off yourself and any person that you are the legal guardian for, for example a dependent child. Please provide information about your relationship to the person that you wish to opt off.
Why do you need my personal details to opt me out?
We need to confirm your identity before processing an opt-off request to ensure we are applying the change to the correct person. This usually includes your full name, date of birth, postal address, and the practice you are enrolled with.
If you know your NHI number, this is also very helpful for accurately identifying your record.
What happens if I change GP clinics?
If you move to a GP clinic that participates in Your Health Summary, your summary information will become available to authorised clinicians involved in your care.
If you have previously opted off, you will need to request to opt off again when you enrol with a new clinic. This is because the opt-off applies to your current enrolled practice, and cannot be carried over automatically if you change clinics or if your new clinic joins the system.
Can you opt me off when you don’t have any records of me in YHS?
No, if there is no data about you on YHS, we cannot opt you off.
How come you don’t have any records for me?
There are a few common reasons for this:
Your enrolled GP clinic may not participate in Your Health Summary.
You may not be enrolled with a GP clinic in Metro Auckland.
You may be a casual (non-enrolled) patient, and Your Health Summary only includes information for enrolled patients.
Your Health Summary contains information from participating GP clinics across the Metro Auckland region and does not include records for patients who are not enrolled with a participating practice.
If I have opted off, can I change my mind?
Yes, you can. To change your status so that your medical summary is available to health care providers in YHS again, please email [email protected]
For clinicians
What is the purpose of Your Health Summary?
Your Health Summary (YHS) supports safer, more informed clinical care by making key general practice information available to authorised clinicians across care settings. This improves patient safety and continuity of care, particularly when patients present outside their usual clinic or are unable to provide a full history.
Access to YHS can support clinical care by:
Highlighting important risks such as allergies, medications and significant conditions, including when patients cannot communicate these themselves
Reducing unnecessary duplication of tests and investigations
Supporting more timely and informed clinical decision-making
Enabling continuity of care regardless of where the patient is seen.
What areas are covered by Your Health Summary (YHS)?
Your Health Summary currently operates across Metro Auckland. Similar shared health record systems are in place in other regions, including Wairarapa, MidCentral, Hutt Valley, Whanganui, and Capital & Coast.
What technology underpins Your Health Summary?
Your Health Summary is powered by the Valentia Technologies Shared Electronic Health Record platform. A secure data extraction utility connects to the practice management system (PMS) database to retrieve and summarise relevant patient information. This data is then packaged and transmitted via a secure web service to a protected data centre. Only the information required for YHS is extracted, and all data is encrypted both in transit and at rest.
What is Your Health Summary used for?
Your Health Summary is designed solely to support the delivery of healthcare to individual patients. By sharing key health information, it helps clinicians provide the safest and most effective care by:
Highlighting potential risks from allergies, medications, or medical conditions — even when patients cannot communicate them.
Preventing unnecessary repetition of tests.
Supporting quicker, better-informed clinical decisions.
Access to Your Health Summary is strictly limited to clinicians who are approved to use it and only for direct patient care. It is not used for population health monitoring, evaluating clinician performance, or accessed by insurance companies or government agencies except where required by law.
Who can access Your Health Summary?
Only healthcare providers who need the information to care for patients can access Your Health Summary. Each request is reviewed by the YHS Clinical Director and must be approved before access is granted.
Examples of providers who may access YHS:
General Practitioners
Nurse Practitioners
Urgent Care Doctors and Hospital Specialists
Community Pharmacists
Paramedics.
All access requests are also ratified by the Clinical Governance Committee (CGC), which ensures proper oversight and considers Māori data governance principles.
Some hospitals and organisations have special access arrangements due to the nature of their work. These arrangements are reviewed and approved by the Clinical Director and the CGC before access is granted.
What if my patients do not want their records to be shared?
A patient can choose at any time to opt out of having a shared record. If a patient opts out, their healthcare provider may not have access to important health information, which could lead to repeated tests or delays in treatment.
To opt a patient out, email their NHI number to [email protected]. A patient can also contact YHS directly to make an opt-out request. All requests are verified through an identification process before they are actioned.
Do we have consent to share information in this way?
When a patient enrols with their GP clinic through a Primary Health Organisation (PHO), they indicate on the enrolment form that they have read and understood the Use of Health Information Statement. This statement informs patients that their health information may be shared with other clinicians involved in their care. It also explains that patients can choose not to share their information, although withholding it may affect the quality of care they receive.
The use of Your Health Summary aligns with this consent because the information is only accessible to clinicians directly involved in providing care to the individual patient. A privacy impact assessment has been completed to:
Identify potential effects of an electronic summary like Your Health Summary on individual privacy
Ensure ongoing compliance with the twelve Health Information Privacy Code (HIPC) principles
Identify mechanisms to mitigate any undesirable impacts
Confirm that care and diligence have been applied in implementing Your Health Summary.
Can I stop certain people or clinics from seeing information about my patients?
All access requests to Your Health Summary are carefully reviewed by the YHS Clinical Director. Provisional approvals are then presented to the regional Clinical Governance Group (YHS CGG) for ratification. If the CGG raises concerns, access may be revoked.
Clinicians are only permitted to access records for patients they are directly involved in providing healthcare for, and they must seek the patient’s verbal consent before viewing the record.
If you have concerns about specific individuals or clinics having access, you can contact the YHS Clinical Director at [email protected].
All access to Your Health Summary is audited, and patients can request a report showing who has viewed their record.
Who monitors or audits access to Your Health Summary?
Your Health Summary has a full-time dedicated auditor responsible for carrying out routine and targeted audits of system access. Audit results are reported to the YHS Clinical Director and the regional YHS Governance Group.
The Clinical Director operates independently from the YHS service and has the authority to audit access by any user, YHS staff and technology vendor. Every time a patient’s clinical data is viewed in YHS, the access is recorded in a secure audit log.
What happens to people or clinics that break the rules of access or abuse the information in YHS?
Unauthorised or inappropriate use of the information in YHS action will be investigated by the YHS Clinical Director on behalf of the Regional Governance Group. Action taken may include:
Revoking access to Your Health Summary,
Reporting the breach to the appropriate professional body and
Other penalties that could be imposed under NZ legislation and the Health Information Privacy Code 1994.
Will clinics or other health organisations be able to use the fact they have access to patient records across the Auckland region as a promotional tool?
No. The terms of the agreement stipulate that clinicians who have authorised access to YHS cannot use this as a promotional or marketing message/tool.
How can I know who has accessed my patient’s information?
If a healthcare professional or patient has concerns about potential inappropriate access, they should contact [email protected].
Can clinicians make changes to patient records through Your Health Summary?
No. Your Health Summary is a read-only summary of information from the patient’s GP clinic. Any changes or corrections must be made in the GP clinic’s software (practice management system), and these updates will be reflected in YHS after the next upload.
Is the YHS a medical record?
Your Health Summary is not a complete medical record. It must be used in conjunction with standard history taking methodologies, and should not be relied on by itself.
Is Your Health Summary different from TestSafe?
Yes. Your Health Summary contains information not held in TestSafe. While TestSafe primarily records hospital activity, most healthcare is delivered in the community, and YHS captures a summary of this information.
YHS includes additional details such as classifications, immunisations, allergies and alerts, radiology reports and private specialist letters.
Can patients access their information in Your Health Summary?
Your Health Summary is not a patient portal, so patients cannot access it directly. Patients with a portal through their GP clinic may see a summary of their health information, which in most cases is similar to what is in YHS, though it may differ slightly depending on what the clinic chooses to include.
Patients without a portal or those who want a more complete view of the information held in YHS can request their records from their GP clinic or by contacting [email protected]. All requests are subject to an identity verification process before the information is provided.
Who owns the information in Your Health Summary?
The information in Your Health Summary is not owned by YHS. YHS acts as a custodian, holding and managing the data on behalf of patients and their healthcare providers.
How can my clinic start uploading data to Your Health Summary?
Participating in Your Health Summary is completely free for clinics. Getting set up is simple:
Contact the YHS Service Manager at [email protected] They will guide you through the process and answer any questions.
Sign an agreement. This provides consent for your clinic’s data to be uploaded to YHS.
Set up the data extraction utility. Our help desk will arrange a convenient time to install and configure the YHS extraction utility, which automatically extracts data from your practice management system.
The first extraction captures all required data. After that, the utility runs at regular intervals and only uploads new or updated information, so it won’t affect your day-to-day operations. The utility does not write any data back to your system.
Getting started is easy, and the YHS Service Manager is there to support you every step of the way.
Can I withdraw my patients’ information from YHS?
If you wish to withdraw your patient information from Your Health Summary please contact the YHS Clinical Director to discuss your concerns [email protected]
What happens if a patient opts out?
If a patient has opted out, their information is not loaded into the YHS database. When data is extracted from the practice management system, it is first loaded into a staging database. Any patient who has opted out will have their data deleted at this stage and it will not be added to the YHS database.
If a patient opts out after their data has already been uploaded to YHS, their information will be deleted from the YHS database as soon as the opt-out is processed.
How do I explain the YHS to my patients if they ask for more details?
You can refer them to the YHS website for further information:yourhealthsummary.org.nz
What do I need to tell my patients about Your Health Summary?
Clinicians should inform patients about the types of information included in Your Health Summary and the care settings in which it can be accessed. Before accessing a patient’s record, clinicians must seek verbal consent.
Participating GP clinics also have access to posters and other materials that can be used to help raise awareness with patients.
Will aggregated YHS data be available and if so to whom?
Aggregated data will not be available. The Your Health Summary facility is only for use in providing care to patients directly and only by clinicians with approved access to the YHS. It is not available for use in any population health monitoring or for assessment of clinical performance. It is not accessible by Insurance companies or Government agencies unless required by law.
What do I do if I think someone is abusing YHS?
If you think someone is abusing YHS you should contact the YHS Clinical Director via contact@yourhealthsummary.org.nz
Why do we need to sign two agreements?
One agreement is for your practice to register with Your Health Summary where you agree to upload your patient information to the YHS cloud. The other practice agreement needs to be signed on behalf of your entire practice. This agreement means the practice can now use and access the Your Health Summary platform. This agreement also covers strict privacy regulations.
Can I use Your Health Summary on behalf of my family members?
It is only permitted to access Your Health Summary when directly involved in delivering healthcare for a patient. It is not permitted to access the system for the purpose of retrieving information regarding family members or other people close to you.
Why do I not see the YHS application for my patient?
Either the clinic where the patient is registered has not signed up for YHS or the patient has opted off.