Medibank-owned Australian Health Management (ahm) was last night named the 2009 winner of the Large Business Category at the Australian Privacy Awards.
ahm won the award ahead of the National Australia Bank and PayPal for its two e-learning packages (Privacy Package and Private Health Insurance Privacy Package) which were specifically developed for staff to inform them on privacy obligations.
Medibank Managing Director, George Savvides, said ahm's success reflected a commitment to privacy that is consistent throughout the entire Medibank group.
"Medibank employs over 3000 employees, including hundreds of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, who work with customer information of a private and personal nature everyday, so we are keenly aware of our responsibilities in this area.
"The whole Medibank family is proud of ahm's success in the Australian Privacy Awards. It is due reward for the great work the ahm team have put in to develop a customised package for private health insurance customers, and ahm customers can feel very confident their personal information is in safe hands," he said.
ahm Executive Group Manager, Dean Tillotson, was delighted with the win. "This is a fantastic achievement for ahm," he said.
"We take the issue of privacy very seriously at ahm and aim to provide detailed information to our staff in a user friendly manner while still ensuring the highest standard of privacy protection with our members. All employees are trained in the Privacy Act and National Privacy Principles and we provide ongoing refresher training.
"For our customer service staff who are the 'frontline', the training is based on the real life scenarios they see on a daily basis. This means things like hospital cover checks and health care providers, such as doctors and dentists, contacting ahm for information. This ensures staff understand what they should and shouldn't do in each case in respect of privacy while maintaining our excellent levels of service," he said.
Australian Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis said that "as a result of the packages, ahm has seen many more privacy-related issues being recognised as such and being escalated through the workplace for resolution, as staff now better understand privacy is a priority."
"The Awards aim to acknowledge good privacy practices. Many have adopted innovative approaches to compliance and have embedded privacy as a core value in their activities."