Privacy policy
Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy, we provide this policy explaining our current online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. This Privacy Policy applies to the operation of all of Institute for Surgical Excellence’s websites, products and services (collectively the “Services”). Our comprehensive Privacy Policy is designed to provide you with the confidence and peace of mind to fully participate in the Services offered by Institute for Surgical Excellence, including freely exchanging information, ideas and educational support with your peers.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
You are required to register with us before you can gain access to the Services. It is only necessary for you to register once. During registration you voluntarily provide information that can identify you, such as your name, e-mail address, and other similar information. You may update or modify your personal profile at any time by accessing the appropriate section within the Services. You may also provide personally identifiable information, such as any information voluntarily provided through responses to surveys, postings on message boards, or through online feedback mechanisms. All such information may be collected by Institute for Surgical Excellence.
In addition, there is also information about your computer hardware and software that is automatically collected by Institute for Surgical Excellence. This information can include your IP Address, browser type, access times, and referring Web site addresses. This information is used by Institute for Surgical Excellence to operate, and to maintain the quality of, its Services, and to provide general statistics regarding use of these Services. Use of Institute for Surgical Excellence’s Services does not require disclosing sensitive personal information, such as race, religion, or political affiliations, and you are encouraged not to share such information on the Services.
USE OF INFORMATION
Institute for Surgical Excellence does not sell, rent or lease your personal information to third parties. We will not share with any third party outside the Services any information (such as name or email address) that can identify you personally, or allow a third party to contact you, except under the special circumstances described below.
Institute for Surgical Excellence collects and uses your personal information to operate and deliver the Services you have requested. Institute for Surgical Excellence also uses your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services relevant to your practice available from Institute for Surgical Excellence and its affiliates. We also track the usage patterns of our participants and use this usage information to improve our participant experience. We may use some of your personal information to help us improve our services by soliciting your feedback on certain features or potential new services. We may contact a select group of participants to alert you of a new feature or service and/or to ask your opinion and advice on future services and features.
INFORMATION SHARING
All personal information provided to Institute for Surgical Excellence in conjunction with your use of the Services will be protected by Institute for Surgical Excellence and retained within Institute for Surgical Excellence except for the following limited cases:
We may share personal information with agents, contractors or partners of Institute for Surgical Excellence in connection with services that these individuals or entities perform for, or with, Institute for Surgical Excellence. These agents, contractors or partners are restricted from using this data in any way other than to provide services for Institute for Surgical Excellence, or services for the collaboration in which they and Institute for Surgical Excellence are engaged (for example, some of our Services are developed and marketed through joint agreements with other organizations). We may, for example, provide your information to agents, contractors or partners for hosting our databases, for data processing services, or so that they can send you information that you requested.
We may disclose certain personal information as required by applicable law or regulatory requirements or if we believe it necessary to protect the rights, safety or property of other participants or of the Services or of Institute for Surgical Excellence.
We may also provide information to a third party in connection with the sale, assignment, or other transfer of the business of the Services to which the information relates, in which case we will require any such buyer to agree to treat the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
ANONYMOUS INFORMATION
Institute for Surgical Excellence uses non-identifying and aggregate information to better design the Services and to share with third parties for the purposes of product development, research or statistical analysis. This information does not personally and specifically identify you but is derived from your use of the Services. For example, Institute for Surgical Excellence may analyze the choices made by participants as they work through an interactive case, however, we would not disclose any personal information that could be used to identify those individual participants. The results may be incorporated into future educational products and services, or may be provided to third parties with an interest in medical policy and practices.
SECURITY OF YOUR INFORMATION
Institute for Surgical Excellence secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. When personally identifiable sensitive information is collected, it is protected through the use of industry standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.
Although Institute for Surgical Excellence makes every reasonable attempt to secure your information, there is always some risk in transmitting information over the Internet. There is always a risk that thieves could find some way to circumvent our security systems. Although we take appropriate measures to protect your information, we cannot guarantee that the personal information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.
LINKS TO OTHER SITES
The Services may contain links to other sites. Institute for Surgical Excellence is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our sites and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by Institute for Surgical Excellence.
PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY
Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through Institute for Surgical Excellence’s public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others. It is solely your responsibility to control any and all access to your username and password, to sign out when you leave Institute for Surgical Excellence, and to immediately inform Institute for Surgical Excellence of any reason to disable your username and/or password.
USE OF COOKIES
The Services use cookies. A cookie is a piece of data stored on your personal computer to maintain an uninterrupted transaction with our Services. Usage of a cookie by our Services is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. Once you close your browser or sign off our Services, the cookie simply terminates. If you reject the cookie, you will not be able to use our web-based Services.
IP ADDRESSES
The Services uses Internet Protocol (IP) Addresses. An IP Address is a number assigned to your computer by your Internet service provider so you can access the Internet. Generally, an IP address changes each time you connect to the Internet (it is a “dynamic” address). Note, however, that if you have a broadband connection, depending on your individual circumstance, it is possible that your IP Address that we collect, or even perhaps a cookie we use, may contain information that could be deemed identifiable. This is because with some broadband connections your IP Address doesn’t change (it is “static”) and could be associated with your personal computer. We use your IP address to report aggregate information on use and to help improve the Services.
INDIVIDUALS UNDER 18
You should be aware that these Services are not intended for, or designed to attract, individuals under the age of 18. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we actually know is an individual under the age of 18.
INSTITUTE FOR SURGICAL EXCELLENCE EMPLOYEES
At Institute for Surgical Excellence, any employee access to personally identifiable information is authorized for business purposes only and is based on the sensitivity of the information and our employees’ or agents’ need to know. Institute for Surgical Excellence reminds employees regularly of their responsibility for using personally identifiable information. Disregard of this responsibility will result in disciplinary action, including termination in appropriate cases.
CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
This Privacy Policy was last updated on November 9th, 2020. This policy is subject to change from time to time as we extend our services and as circumstances warrant. Institute for Surgical Excellence will let you know if we decide to change our privacy policy. We will post a notice of any changes on our website. As a result, you will always be aware of what information we collect, why we collect the information and how we use the information. Your continued use of the Services following these changes will constitute your consent to the Privacy Policy, as changed. If any change to the Privacy Policy is unacceptable to you, your only recourse is to terminate your use of the Services.
YOUR CONSENT
By using our Services, you consent to the data practices described in this Privacy Policy.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Should you have other questions or concerns about these privacy policies, please send us an e-mail at privacy@surgicalexcellence.org