Upload Advance Care Directive to My Health Record Victoria

Why My Health Record Matters for Victorian ACDs

Victoria has no centralised government registry for Advance Care Directives. If you're admitted to an unfamiliar hospital unconscious after a car accident, or transferred between facilities during an acute illness, the treating team's ability to find your directive depends on whether it's been lodged somewhere they can access.

My Health Record (MHR) is the closest thing Australia has to a national health document repository. Clinicians in any public or private hospital with MHR connectivity can pull up your record during treatment, which makes it the single widest-reach distribution point for your ACD.

How to Upload Your ACD

Step 1 — Create a clear PDF scan. Scan your signed, witnessed ACD as a PDF. Make sure every page is legible, including the signatures of both witnesses and the registered medical practitioner. If you signed using a hand-drawn digital stylus on a tablet, save the original electronic file as a PDF.

Step 2 — Log in to My Health Record. Go to myhealthrecord.gov.au and sign in through your myGov account. If you don't have a myGov account linked to MHR, you'll need to set one up first — you'll need a form of government ID and a Medicare card.

Step 3 — Navigate to your documents. Once logged in, look for the option to add personal health documents. My Health Record allows you to upload PDFs and images to your personal health summary.

Step 4 — Upload and label. Upload the PDF and label it clearly — "Advance Care Directive — Victoria — [date signed]" is a sensible naming convention. If you've also completed a Medical Treatment Decision Maker appointment, upload that as a separate document with its own clear label.

Step 5 — Verify the upload. Log out, then log back in and check that the documents appear and are readable. An upload that shows as a corrupted file or a blank page defeats the purpose.

What My Health Record Can and Can't Do

What it does well: MHR gives clinicians across Australia a single place to check for advance care planning documents. If you're holidaying in Queensland and have a medical emergency, the treating team in Brisbane can access your Victorian ACD through the same system.

What it doesn't guarantee: Not every clinician checks MHR during rapid triage. In a time-critical emergency — cardiac arrest, major trauma — the immediate clinical response happens before anyone opens your health record. The directive becomes relevant once the patient is stabilised and the team begins planning ongoing treatment.

MHR is also not a substitute for direct copies. Your GP, your treating hospital, and your Medical Treatment Decision Maker should all hold their own copies, because MHR access depends on system connectivity, login credentials, and the clinician actually knowing to look there.

Ask Your GP to Upload on Your Behalf

Many GPs can upload documents to your My Health Record through their practice software. If you're having your ACD witnessed by your GP anyway — which you must, since a registered medical practitioner is a required witness — ask them to scan and upload it to your MHR at the same appointment.

This is often more reliable than doing it yourself, because the GP's clinical software creates a structured upload that integrates with the broader health record rather than sitting as a standalone attachment.

Keep It Current

If you revoke, update, or replace your ACD, you need to remove the old version from My Health Record and upload the new one. An outdated directive in MHR can create confusion if a clinician finds it and assumes it's current. Every time you update your directive, treat the MHR upload as part of the same process — not something to get to later.

The Victoria Advance Directive & Living Will Kit includes a My Health Record Upload Checklist that walks you through the upload process and tracks when your documents were last updated across all storage locations.

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