NEMCH WEBSITE PRIVACY POLICY

The Northeast Medical Center Hospital (NEMCH), and its affiliated entities Northeast Hospice Services, Northeast Regional Cancer Center, Northeast Minor Emergency Center – Humble, Northeast Minor Emergency Center – Kingwood, Northeast Diagnostic Center (collectively, the “Hospital”), takes seriously the privacy of its web site users and the security of their personal information.  We have prepared this Website Privacy Policy to help you understand how we may collect, use and disseminate your personal information as you take advantage of the various offerings on our web site.  By using this web site, you agree to the terms of this policy, as amended from time to time.  We ask you to read this Website Privacy Policy carefully. This Website Privacy Policy may change periodically, so please check back from time to time.  Any questions or comments about this Website Privacy Policy should be directed to the Hospital site coordinator at webmaster@nemch.org.

This policy describes and explains:

1. The types of personally identifiable information collected from you and how the Hospital may use such information;



2. The parties with whom your personal information may be shared;



3. Your ability to access, review, edit and/or delete your personal information;



4. Your options regarding the Hospital’s collection, use and dissemination of your personal information;



5. The security measures in place to safeguard your personal information;



6. Privacy issues relating to the personal information of children;



7. Your acceptance of the terms; and



8. Contacting us.

(1) What information does the Hospitalcollect? How does the   Hospital use my information? 

The Hospital gathers from you a variety of information as you take advantage of our services.

Personal Information.  The Hospital collects personal information in different ways, including, without limitation, when you register on our site and whenever you complete online surveys or forms, or notify the Hospital of any problems or complaints.  The information that the Hospital collects may include, without limitation; contact information (name, email address, birth date, gender, zip code, occupation, industry and personal interests), country-specific or other unique identifiers, financial information (credit card numbers), demographic information (zip code, age and income levels), and information regarding your interest in various health topics or services offered by the Hospital.  At the Hospital, we endeavor to indicate that your disclosure of certain information is optional when we do not consider it mandatory. 

Generally, the Hospital will use your personal information as follows:

• We use contact information to contact you when necessary. We also may use this information to send you information about the Hospital, which you may opt-out of as described below.



• We use unique identifiers to verify your identity and for use in our record system.



• We may use demographic and profile data to tailor your experience at our site.This data allows us to deliver content that we think may be of interest to you and to display content according to your preferences.

The Hospital monitors the use of its web site and collects aggregate information to monitor the use of the site.  No personally identifiable data are collected in this process.  Typically, the number of visitors to the site, to each web page and the originating domain name of the visitor’s Internet service provider are collected.  This information is used to understand the visitor’s use of the web site.  We may perform statistical analyses of the behaviors and characteristics of our visitors in order to measure interest in and use of the various areas of our Web site. We may share with our member institutions, government sponsors of clinical trials, advertisers and other companies with which we do business, this statistical information, as well as the number of users that have been exposed to or clicked on various features of the Hospital site.

If you do not wish to receive correspondence relating to the Hospital or other related information, please indicate your preference by opting-out as described below.

Any personal information that you disclose to us will be used by the Hospital in accordance with this Website Privacy Policy.  If you ask us to not use this information as a basis for further contact with you, we will endeavor to respect your request.  By submitting any personal information to the Hospital, you consent to the collection, storing, and processing of your personal information, including information about your health, by the Hospital.  Keep in mind that while your personal information is displayed on the screen it is not secure.

Information from your computer.  In addition to the collection of personal information, our Web site recognizes certain information about your computer, such as the browser, operating system, IP address and home server from which you access the Internet.  We keep track of the domains from which people visit our site.  Your IP address is used to help identify you, gather broad demographic data, identify trends and statistics, help diagnose problems with our server and administer our Web site.  We will use your IP address information when compiling and reporting aggregate information to companies doing business with us.  We normally do not link IP addresses to any personally identifiable information; however, when we feel it is appropriate to enforce compliance with our terms of service or to protect our service, site, customers, visitors or others, we may use IP addresses and other such information to identify a visitor.

Cookies.  Our site uses “cookies” to provide us certain information about you.  Cookies are pieces of data sent from a web site to your browser and then stored on your hard drive.  Cookies track and save your preferences while you are at our site, and we may use this information to tailor your experience and provide you with customized information.  Our site uses cookies to deliver interest-specific content, track visitor trends and practices, to save your password so you do not have to enter it every time you visit our site, to store member names and passwords, store and retrieve log-in information and to ensure that you do not see the same advertisement repeatedly.  In addition, cookies allow us to measure and report aggregate information.  Also, cookies help us determine the popular areas of our site by tracking hits to those areas.  By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept cookies, receive notification when a cookie is sent or reject cookies.

Other Information Practices.  We reserve the right to use or disclose information, as we deem appropriate to help us provide our services, to maintain and operate our web site, or to protect our web site, our systems, or our visitors.  Further, in addition to the situations described above, we may disclose visitor information in special instances when we have reason to believe disclosure is appropriate to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interfering with the Hospital's rights or property, other Hospital users or anyone else.  We may disclose user information when subpoenaed for government investigations and when we otherwise believe in good faith that the law requires such disclosure.

(2) To whom will my information be disclosed?

The Hospital reserves the right to disclose information collected from you to the Hospital’s personnel and appropriate personnel at Hospital’s member institutions, clinical trial sponsors, as well as our affiliates.  This is a mandatory term of this Privacy Policy that you cannot opt-out of.  By using our web site, you indicate your acceptance of this term and acknowledge that your personal information may be shared with such institutions and affiliates, and any entity directly or indirectly acquiring all or a majority of the Hospital’s assets. 

The Hospital may, from time to time, share information received from you or your computer with other persons or entities.  Such other companies may include those which provide services to us, such as consultants, web server and email hosting services, and the like.  We reserve the right to distribute your information to third parties at any time, unless you opt out by asking us to remove your information from our databases and discontinue providing you with information about our products or services (except with respect to disclosures in accordance with the previous paragraph).

The Hospital site contains links to other web sites.  Links to other web sites are provided as a free service to visitors.  This Privacy Policy does not apply to those sites.  The Hospital does not endorse, sponsor or recommend these sites and does not take responsibility for the data policies or procedures or the content of such linked sites.  We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these other sites.  You should check the privacy policies of these other web sites when providing personally identifiable information.

(3)  How can I delete my information?

You may, at any time, request the removal from our database any information we maintain on you by contacting our web site by email at webmaster@nemch.org.  We will endeavor to comply with any request to remove your information.

(4)  What are my options regarding the Hospital’s collection, use and dissemination of my information?

If you are at least 14 years of age, information you provide to us may be used as described above and for other educational, research, or other purposes by the Hospital and/or companies doing business with us. If you want to opt out of any of these services or any other future communications, you can do so by sending an email with your request to webmaster@nemch.org. 

(5)  What security measures are in place with respect to my information?

The Hospital cannot and does not ensure or warrant the security of any information we receive from you.  You transmit information to us at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we try to ensure its security on our systems.  The Hospital’s policy is to store personal data on a secure server which is password protected and shielded from the outside world by a firewall.

You are solely responsible for protecting the security of your password.  We recommend that you not disclose your password to anyone else, and that you take all reasonable steps to protect the integrity of your password, such as logging off when you are away from your computer.

(6)  What about the privacy rights of children?

We are committed to protecting the privacy interests of children.  Therefore, we do not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under 14 years of age.  If a child under 14 years of age wants to participate on our web site, we encourage the child's parents to participate in his or her experience on our site.

(7)  How do I accept the terms of this Privacy Policy?

By using our web site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.  If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy or any of its terms, please do not use our site.  The Hospital reserves the right to amend this policy at any time.  Your use of our web site following the posting of changes or amendments to this Privacy Policy constitutes acceptance of such changes and amendments.

(8)  How can I contact the Hospital?

The Hospital welcomes feedback and questions on its web site and this Website Privacy Policy.  If for any reason you wish to contact us, or have any questions about this Website Privacy Policy or this site, please do so by sending an email with your request to webmaster@nemch.org.

(9)  How can I obtain or correct my information?

With few exceptions, you are entitled upon request to be informed about the information that the Hospital has collected about you.  Under Sections 552.021 and 552.023 of the Texas Government Code, you are entitled to receive and review such information.  Under Section 559.004 of the Texas Government Code, you are entitled to have the Hospital correct information about you that is incorrect.  The Hospital will endeavor to keep and retain your information for at least as long as any applicable Texas law requires for such records.