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Last updated: May 5,
2008
MedCommons ('MedCommons') is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to its medcommons.net web site (the 'Site'). The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you what kinds of information we may gather about you when you visit the Site, how we may use that information, whether we disclose it and the choices you have regarding our use of, and your ability to manage and edit, the information. This Privacy Policy applies to the Site. This Privacy Policy does not apply to other web sites to which we link.
The Site is a health records platform that allows you and your designated sources to collect personal information on your behalf. You can also share your personal information with family, friends, and health care professionals as well as with separate tools and software applications (each, an "Application") available online. Such Applications might be used to collect, edit, process and search for relevant information.
The Site is organized into Accounts typically representing a single individual. An Account contains private information for the purpose of identifying the individual (e.g.: name, email address) as well as private medical information (e.g.: allergies, medications, diagnoses, lab results, hospitals and health history).
The Site is designed to allow a great deal of control to the patient-owner
of any private information collected on their behalf. This includes the
ability for a caregiver to create an Account about you and then transfer
ownership of the account to you; the ability for you to download
substantially all documents in your owned account in a convenient format; to
delete access to others who may have created the Account about you; to
delete the account contents in part or their entirety. Although we ask for
personal identifying and contact information in order to provide reliable
and convenient service, we also allow account owners to be identified
anonymously and to link their accounts to external and independent
third-party authentication services. Social networks are an example of such
a third-party authentication service.
We collect personal information to identify users and as part of the health records managed by the Site. We use the information that you provide for the following general purposes:
Information we collect for the purpose of accessing external Applications may include passwords or security tokens that identify you as the authorized user.
You can authorize external Applications and other third parties to add, view, modify and/or delete information in the Account. Please refer to the privacy statements of those Applications for information about their privacy policies and how they will use the information they access.
By default, Accounts are controlled by one or more "custodians," initially the user or Application that created the Account. Additional Account custodians may be added to the list of custodians at the time of Account creation or subsequently. Control of an account can be passed from one custodian to another. For example, a doctor can create an account for the purpose of medical referral (in which case, the doctor would be the custodian) and then transfer control of the Account to the patient to use as a personal health record (in which case, the patient would be the custodian). The patient might then choose to assume sole control of the account and revoke or continue access privileges to the original or other doctor(s) as desired.
Through the Site, we automatically gather certain information about the use
of the Site, such as the how frequently certain areas of the Site are
visited including through the use of cookies, web beacons and other
technologies. We also collect standard information that your browser sends
to every web site you visit such as browser type, IP address, language,
access times and referring Web site address.
The Site provides add-on information collection Applicationsthat can be used to acquire medical images and other records from your computer or network and to store such medical images and records on your computer or network. If you choose to install and use such an add-on Application, the information on your computer or network is not under the control of the Site and should be protected by you (such as by using firewalls and virus scanners) and deleted as soon as practical.
The Site is designed to facilitate disclosure of medical record information under strict control and consent. Sharing of medical information allows care management for a family member or friend, consultation with your health care provider or an independent second-opinion. Disclosure to an external Application allows processing to detect errors or drug interactions and communications with imaging scanners and hospital networks that are otherwise inaccessible from the Internet.
Sharing is controlled by designated Account custodian(s). Access can be granted to users that are authenticated by the Site (and subject to this Site's policies and password check) and to users that are authenticated by third-party sites that are trusted by any custodian of your Account. For example, you may grant access to a user authenticated by an OpenID service provider (e.g.: Verisign PIP) without requiring the user to store a password or other private information on the Site. See "Independent Third Party Authentication", below).
We do not sell, trade or rent your personal information to others. We may
permit certain trusted partners to access your information in connection
with their performance of services to maintain and operate the Site and
certain features on the Site on our behalf such as processing credit card
payments and converting faxes into PDF documents for your account. We do not
otherwise disclose any personal information that you provide to us or any
information about your individual visits to our site except when we believe
in good faith (i) that the law requires such disclosure or (ii) that such
disclosure is necessary to protect the rights and property of MedCommons or
others.
We use non-personally identifiable information in the aggregate, so that we
can improve the Site and for business and administrative purposes. We also
may use or share with third parties for any purpose aggregated data that
contains no personally identifiable information. We do not use your personal
information from the Site for marketing or solicitation without first asking
and receiving your consent.
Your account is created by you or a custodian on your behalf and includes personal information owned by you. Proof of ownership of an account at the Site is documented by possession of the Registration Page. Accounts created by a custodian on your behalf can be claimed by their owner with the cooperation of the custodian(s).
Any user or application with Write privilege to the Account will be able to modify and delete information thereby making it inaccessible to others. The Account provides owners a Download All Documents feature that can be used to conveniently create a separate archive outside of the Account.
The owner of an account can modify or delete information in the Account. Modification of digitally signed information may invalidate the digital signature. Deletion of a document or information item may leave a log of the deletion event for security purposes. Custodians of Accounts that are not owned can modify and delete all contents.
The owner of an Account can close their Account. Custodians of accounts that are not owned can also close an Account. Information in an Account that is closed will become inaccessible immediately and will be deleted in 90 days. This time is chosen to minimize the risk of accidental or malicious deletion. Deleted Accounts can may be restorable by contacting the Site support office.
Accounts on the Site can be created by a custodian authenticated by a third-party unrelated to the operator of the Site. Social networking sites are a common example of a third-party authenticator that may be linked to the Site. This feature enables single sign-on, protects privacy by reducing the amount of personal information the Site must collect, allows for anonymous accounts and makes it convenient for caregivers to create accounts on a person's behalf. Accounts that are created subject to authentication of a third party may be unreachable directly from the Site for purposes of access, update or closure. To enable direct control of an Account in case they lose access to or the cooperation of the third-party authenticator, custodians and owners should establish an email and password at the Site as well as print and keep their Account Recovery Page safely in their files.
The Site reserves the right to deny authentication privileges to a third-party authenticator.
Any custodian of an Account on the Site may enable access to some or
all of the account by other users, groups and applications. Users, groups
and applications may be authenticated by the Site or by third-party
authenticators acceptable to the custodian or owner of the Account that
authorizes the access. The Site does not monitor the credentials or restrict
third-party authenticators you authorize for access to your Account. By
authorizing access you (or another custodian) are asserting that the person,
group or application is able to access the specific Account on the Site that
you control as custodian.
Groups and applications that are granted access to your account may represent one or more individual users. Group membership or access to the application is beyond the Site's control. DO NOT AUTHORIZE ACCESS TO GROUPS OR APPLICATIONS AS AUTHENTICATED BY THE SITE OR BY A THIRD PARTY AUTHENTICATOR UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE PRIVACY POLICY OF THE SITE OR THE THIRD PARTY AUHENTICATOR OR APPLICATION.
The Site may allow sharing of a subset of the account in order to restrict access by different groups and facilitate second opinions. It is your responsibility to understand and configure these restrictions appropriately.
The Site may assign tracking numbers and PIN numbers to some documents. The tracking numbers are not personally-identifiable information and might be transmitted conveniently in email. The PIN may be communicated directly by you or another authorized user of the Account to another user such as over a phone to allow access to the document via the tracking number. Please exercise great caution in using the PIN feature. Once a PIN is disclosed, it is out of your control and may be abused or shared by multiple users without a specific record to document how many different users gained access.
The Site uses email, SMS and other potentially insecure methods to alert designated users of Account activity. These messages typically include a tracking number and a user-editable text field describing the purpose or subject. Do not include personally-identifiable information in the notification text field.
The Site uses cookies to enable you to sign in and to navigate around the site.
We do not solicit any personal information from children under the age of
13. We encourage families to obtain additional information about safe use of
the Internet at
http://www.ftc.gov/kidzprivacy/.
A parent or guardian can create an Account for a child and may restrict the
child's access or ability to modify the Account.
If we decide to change our Privacy Policy for the Site, we will post the
revised Privacy Policy here so that you will always know what information we
gather, how we might use that information and whether we will disclose it to
anyone.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, please contact
us at:
MedCommons, Inc.
100 Galen
St.
Watertown, MA 02472
617 395
6744
report@medcommons.net