Video demo of YHS
Hear from Your Health Summary Clinical Director, Dr Daniel Calder and get a look at where to find YHS in RCP (screenshot below).
FAQs for Hospital Clinicians
1. When should I access Your Health Summary ?
YHS shows summary information from a patient’s registered GP clinic including up-to-date allergy status and diagnosis list. This can provide important information that you would otherwise not have at hand.
This is particularly useful when patients present to hospital without a recent referral letter.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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
Hospital Clinicians
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.
5. Is 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.