Privacy Policies
Notice of Privacy Practices
The Notice of Privacy Practices describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information.
Online Privacy Policy
Collecting and Using Personal Information
Welcome to the UnityPoint Health - Allen Hospital website. We
appreciate your interest in us! When you visit and navigate our sites
and when you communicate with us via our website, we will not collect
personal information about you unless you provide us that information
voluntarily. If you provide personal information to us voluntarily via
our website, we will not sell, license or transmit that information
outside of UnityPoint Health and affiliated vendors/contractors who are
involved in administering or providing services for fulfillment of your
specific information requests (newsletters and e-health information). We
will disclose information in compliance with applicable laws and
regulations and will require recipients to protect the information and
use it only for the purpose provided.
By "personal information," we mean data that is unique to an
individual, such as a name, address, social security number or telephone
number. We may request personal information from you at our site in
order to deliver requested materials to you, respond to your questions
or deliver a product or service.
E-Mail and Asking Questions
First of all, it is important that you realize that any online health
services and health information is not intended as a substitute for
direct information from a trained medical professional, such as a
physician, nurse or caregiver. You should always consult directly with a
medical professional for diagnosis and treatment of any specific health
problems or immediate health concerns. The information on our website
is not medical advice!
We welcome your health-related comments or questions or general
questions about our website and have provided e-mail contact
opportunities for that purpose. We will share your comments and
questions with our customer service personnel and those employees most
capable of addressing your questions and concerns.
Please note that your e-mail, like most, if not all, non-encrypted
Internet e-mail communications, may be accessed and viewed by other
Internet users, without your knowledge and permission, while in transit
to us. For that reason, to protect your privacy, please do not use
e-mail to communicate information to us that you consider confidential.
If you wish, you may contact us instead via telephone at the numbers
provided at various locations on our website.
Beyond answering your question, website management personnel will
periodically review questions (without patient identifiers or e-mail
addresses) to determine if additional information should be placed on
the web site that would benefit other patients.
Health Care Content on this Site
The healthcare information provided on or accessed from this site has
been authored by UnityPoint Health and the staff members and physicians
of its affiliates, with the exception of the healthcare information
that has been authored by and purchased from third party vendors
including, but not limited to, A.D.A.M., who are responsible for
security and quality of information licensed by them. UnityPoint Health
provides healthcare information for general knowledge and education and
this content is not intended as a replacement for advice from your
personal physician or direct caregivers.
Information Security
We will use security procedures to protect personal information you
submit to us from misuse or unauthorized disclosure. The personal
information that you submit to us is stored in a secure database behind
an electronic firewall. You can access your personal information only by
using a password. We encourage you to change your password regularly
and not to share it with anyone.
Access to the data is limited to a few computer technicians for our
site who need to maintain the database and who also use passwords for
that access, as well as outside vendors who may occasionally assist us
in maintaining and improving our hardware and software tools.
UnityPoint Health will make every effort to safeguard your personal
information. However, like other Internet sites, we cannot guarantee
that it is completely secure from people who might attempt to evade
security measures or intercept transmissions over the Internet.
Other Information/"Cookies"
You should also be aware that when you visit our website, we collect
certain information that does not identify you personally, but provides
us with "usage data," such as the number of visitors we receive or what
pages are visited most often. This data helps us to analyze and improve
the usefulness of the information we provide online. We do not collect
information about your specific use on the site or track what you view.
We use IP addresses to collect aggregate information about numbers of
visitors and site usage. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number
that is automatically assigned to your computer by your Internet Service
Provider (ISP) whenever you access the Internet. This number may be the
same each time you access the Internet or it may change. The address is
logged on our server when your computer requests information. We do
collect zip code information associated with IP addresses and use this
information to customize the content offered on our site in an attempt
to better meet our users' needs. However, to allow users to access our
site anonymously, we do not link your IP address with personal
information about you other than your zip code . (We reserve the right,
however, to use IP addresses to identify any individuals who threaten
our site, service or customers.)
As part of your use of our website, we may use "cookie" technology
for our own purposes, or those of our affiliates or partners. A "cookie"
is an element of data that a website can send to your browser when you
link to that website. It is not a computer program and has no ability
read data residing on your computer or instruct it to perform any step
or function. By assigning a unique data element to each visitor, the
website is able to recognize repeat users, track usage patterns and
better serve you when you return to that site. The cookie does not
extract other personal information about you, such as your name or
address. Most browsers provide a simple procedure that will enable you
to control whether you want to receive cookies by notifying you when a
website is about to deposit a cookie file. The use of cookie technology
in connection with this website may include cookies from UnityPoint
Health, its affiliates, or from a third party vendor (e.g. Google) to
monitor site statistics.
Linking to Other Sites
From time to time our website may provide links to other websites,
not owned or controlled by UnityPoint Health that we think might be
useful or of interest to you. We cannot, however, be responsible for the
privacy practices used by other website owners or the content or
accuracy of those other websites. Links to various outside websites do
not constitute or imply endorsement by UnityPoint Health of these
websites, any products or services described on these sites, or of any
other material contained in them.
Changes to This Statement
UnityPoint Health may change this statement from time to time without
notice. We plan to post notice on our home page for no less than a week
if any significant changes occur. This privacy statement is not
intended to and does not create any contractual or other legal rights in
or on behalf of any party.