Privacy statement

What this is

Hospital Phonebook is a member-run contact directory for hospital doctors, built and run by doctors. It is not an official service of any hospital, district or health service.

The directory is operated by Meditech Applications (NZBN 9429053950833), a company registered in New Zealand. Meditech Applications is the agency responsible for the personal information described here, under the Privacy Act 2020 and, for members in Australia, the Australian Privacy Principles.

What we collect

To create a profile you must give your work email address (used to verify you work at a hospital), your name, your medical registration number — MCNZ in New Zealand, AHPRA in Australia — and your hospital, specialty and level.

Everything else is optional: your photo, coffee order, what you're happy to be contacted about, your interests, a personal website or LinkedIn link, and any phone numbers you add.

Your registration number is checkable against the public register kept by the Medical Council or AHPRA, and is never shown in the directory. If the number you enter is already held by another member, your profile is automatically hidden until an admin has checked the register — that is how we keep non-doctors out. Once set, only an admin can change it.

The directory also keeps a record of the searches you make and the changes you make to shared hospital information, both described below.

Who can see it

Only verified members — people who have confirmed an approved hospital email address — can see the directory. Nothing is public or visible to search engines. You control how visible your own profile is, from your Profile page: listed in full, listed with your phone number hidden, or hidden from the directory entirely. Admins can always see full profiles for moderation. Be aware that members can save your contact details to their own phone (that copy is on their device and outside the directory's control), so only add numbers you're happy for colleagues to have.

What it's used for

Helping colleagues find and contact each other — nothing else. Your information is never sold, shared outside the membership, or used for advertising. There is no third-party analytics or tracking anywhere in the app.

Searches and usage

When you search the numbers list, the directory records what you typed, how many results came back, and which hospital filter was set. That is used for two things: finding the numbers people look for but can't find, so they can be added, and counting how many members use the directory each week. Other members can never see what you searched for, and neither can you — the record isn't readable from within the app. Admins can see what was searched for and how often, but not who searched for what; it is not used to monitor individuals. Please don't type patient names or details into the search box — the directory holds no patient information, and shouldn't.

The directory also records when you open the numbers or doctors page, and when you tap a call button — only where the tap was (the numbers list, a doctor's card or their profile), never which number or which person you called. These are counted per hospital to show how much the directory is used, and are held under the same rules as searches.

Changes you make

Hospital numbers, hospital information and helpful hints are shared: any member can edit them, and a wrong edit affects everyone. So every change to them is recorded — what changed, before and after, when, and by whom — and admins can see your name and email against your changes. That record is there so a mistake can be found and undone, not to monitor you. Your own profile is not tracked this way.

If you request your hospital

The "request your hospital" form on the home page is open to people who aren't members yet. It collects your name, email, the hospital you're asking for, its location, your relationship to it, your role and anything you write in the notes. That is emailed to us and kept so we can reply and keep track of which hospitals have been asked for. It is used for nothing else, and you can ask us to delete it at any time using the contact details below.

If you help test the roster

Members who sign up to give feedback on the department roster agree to be contacted by email about it. We keep that consent, the optional note about your role in rostering, and any feedback you send from the demo, along with which part of the demo it was about. The demo itself uses made-up data and saves nothing you change there. This is used only to develop the roster, and you can ask us to delete it at any time using the contact details below.

Where it's stored

Data is stored securely with Supabase, a cloud database provider, and is held in Sydney, Australia. Profile photos live in private storage — members have no direct access to it at all, and each photo is shown through a short-lived link created by the server.

Two other providers help run the site. The app is hosted on Vercel, which serves every page and keeps short-lived server logs. Email — sign-up confirmations, password resets, contact messages and hospital requests — is sent through Resend, which is based in the United States, so the contents of those emails leave Australia. Both act on our instructions only, and neither uses your information for its own purposes.

Tapping "directions" on a hospital opens Google Maps, which sends that hospital's name to Google. Nothing about you goes with it.

How long it's kept

Your profile is kept until you delete it or an admin removes it. Search records, usage counts and the record of changes to shared hospital information are kept indefinitely for now — they are what the usage reporting and the undo history are built on. If that changes, we'll say so here.

Your choices

You can edit any part of your profile at any time, and you can permanently delete your account from the Profile page. That removes your profile, photo, favourites, and your search and usage records. Changes you made to shared hospital numbers and hints stay in the record with your name removed, so the directory's history stays intact. Admins can also remove profiles of people who have left their hospital. If you have any other questions or requests about your information, contact Meditech Applications.