Site Policies and Statements

Website Access Agreement for Wake Forest School of Medicine, the North Carolina Baptist Hospitals, Inc. and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center; collectively, Wake Forest Health.

No Medical Advice

The information on this website is provided for general informational purposes only and SHOULD NOT be relied upon as a substitute for sound professional medical advice, evaluation or care from your physician or other qualified healthcare provider. Nothing on this website should be used for treating or diagnosing a medical or health condition or for replacing any relationship with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider. The health information furnished on this website and the interactive responses (if any) furnished by or through, this website are not intended to or implied to be professional medical advice. You are encouraged to consult other sources and confirm the information contained within this website. Consult your own physician regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or medical condition. For medical concerns, including decisions about medications and other treatments, you should always consult your physician or other, qualified healthcare professional. In serious cases, seek immediate assistance from emergency personnel. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem or condition, please contact a physician or other qualified healthcare provider immediately. YOU SHOULD NEVER DISREGARD MEDICAL ADVICE OR DELAY IN SEEKING IT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING YOU HAVE READ ON THIS WEBSITE. No medications, diet supplements or treatments as may be described on this website should be taken or begun without first consulting your physician or other healthcare provider. No information on this website should be considered or shall be deemed to be an endorsement or recommendation by Wake Forest Health of any medication, diet supplements, treatments, products, tests or otherwise.

No Warranties

The information on this website is not exhaustive and is provided "AS IS" and without any warranties of any kind, either express or implied. All implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or use are hereby excluded. Disclaimer of Liability of the Wake Forest Health, if any, for damages (including without limitation liability arising out of tort, strict liability, negligence, contract or patent or copyright infringement) shall not exceed the lesser of (i) the fees paid, if any, to Wake Forest Health for the particular information or service provided on this website or (ii) $100. Wake Forest Health shall not be liable under any theory of indemnity. In no event shall Wake Forest Health be liable for any damages other than the amount referred to above. All other damages, direct or indirect, special, incidental, consequential or punitive are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law, even if Wake Forest Health has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Wake Forest Health expressly disclaims and DOES NOT WARRANT that the functioning of this website will be uninterrupted or error free; that any errors will be corrected; that any information on this website is complete, accurate (although Wake Forest Health strives for accuracy), or timely (or will be updated); and that this website, or the server that makes it available, is or will be free of viruses or other harmful components. You are solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from downloading any material from this website.

YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT WAKE FOREST HEALTH, ITS LICENSORS, SUPPLIERS AND BUSINESS PARTNERS (IF ANY) ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RESULTS OF YOUR DECISIONS RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS WEBSITE OR THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, YOUR CHOOSING TO SEEK OR NOT TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL CARE, OR YOUR CHOOSING OR NOT CHOOSING SPECIFIC TREATMENT BASED ON THE INFORMATION ON OR ACCESSED THROUGH THIS WEBSITE.

Offensive or Explicit Content

This website may contain scientific, medical or health information which you may find sexually explicit or otherwise offensive. The information on this website is meant for adults, or for mature teenagers under parental supervision. Wake Forest Health accepts no responsibility for such materials. You are solely responsible for compliance with the laws applicable to you where you reside.

Disclaimer of Endorsement

Links to other websites are provided, if at all, for your convenience only, and should not be considered and shall not be deemed as an endorsement or recommendation by Wake Forest Health of such other websites or their content. Wake Forest Health is not responsible for the availability, the content or the damage which may be caused by such other websites.

Wake Forest Health, its licensors and suppliers (if any) make no representations or warranties as to the satisfaction of government regulations requiring disclosure of information on prescription drug products (if any) with regard to the information contained on, or accessed through, this website.

Agreement Not to Access Unauthorized Sites

As an additional condition to accessing this website, you agree not to attempt to gain unauthorized access to any areas of this website, computer systems or networks connected to this website.

Agreement Not to Violate Copyright

The materials on our website are copyrighted and may be downloaded or reprinted for personal, non-commercial use only. Permission to reprint or electronically reproduce any document or graphics in whole or in part, for any other reason is prohibited unless prior written consent is obtained from Wake Forest Health.

This Agreement is subject to change without notice.

Wake Forest Health Privacy Statement

Overview

Wake Forest Health is recognized for our commitment to safeguarding consumer privacy on our websites. We operate under the following set of strict privacy principles:

The only information Wake Forest Health obtains about individual visitors to its websites is that supplied voluntarily by visitors.

In cases when Wake Forest Health may need personal information to provide visitors with customized content or to inform them about new features or services, visitors are explicitly asked for that information.

Personally identifiable information provided by visitors (name, e-mail or home address, etc.) will not be disclosed to anyone unless visitors indicate that Wake Forest Health may do so.

Personally identifiable information will not be shared at any time without the visitor's permission. Wake Forest Health employs strict security measures to safeguard online transactions; personal information is stored in a secured database and always sent via an encrypted Internet channel.

The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices:

IP Addresses

An IP address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. All computer identification on the Internet is conducted with IP addresses, which allow computers and servers to recognize and communicate with each other. Wake Forest Health collects IP addresses in order to conduct system administration and to conduct site analysis. If a visitor requests pages from Wake Forest Health, the Wake Forest Health servers enter the visitor's IP address into a log. To maintain visitor anonymity, Wake Forest Health does not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information. However, Wake Forest Health will use IP addresses to identify any visitors who refuse to comply with Wake Forest Health's in-house rules or access agreement, and to identify visitors who threaten our service, site, customers or others.

Cookies

Our site places a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to an individual's hard disk for record keeping purposes. Our site uses cookies during your online session to deliver content specific to your interests. Cookies allow us to avoid showing you the same message repeatedly. Our cookies do not contain personal information. They do enable Wake Forest Health to relate your use of the site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided to our site.

Tracking Pixels

We may collect non-personally identifiable information through the use of tracking pixels. A tracking pixel is a transparent graphic image (usually 1 pixel x 1 pixel) that is placed on a webpage and, in combination with a cookie, allows for the collection of information regarding the use of the webpage that contains the tracking pixel. We use tracking pixels to tell when an advertisement has been clicked on or otherwise interacted with, and use that information to judge which advertisements are more appealing to users. In some cases, we use third-party service providers to help us collect and analyze this information. All tracking abides by Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) practices.

Registration

Our site's registration system requires users to give us contact information such as their name and e-mail address, and demographic information such as a ZIP code, sex, age or income level. The customer's contact information is used to contact the visitor when necessary. Users may choose (opt-in) to receive future mailings; see the choice/opt-in section below. Demographic and profile data is also collected at our site. We use this data to tailor the visitor's experience at our site, showing the visitor content that reflects their stated preferences.

External Links

In order to provide visitors with greater value, Wake Forest Health may provide links to various third party websites. However, even if a third-party affiliation exists between Wake Forest Health and that destination site, Wake Forest Health exercises no authority over linked sites, each of which maintains independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. Wake Forest Health assumes no responsibility or liability for these independent methods or actions and is not responsible for the independent policies or procedures of destination sites. Similarly, Wake Forest Health cannot take responsibility for the privacy initiatives or the content of such websites. These destination links are provided only for your convenience, and as such, you access them at your own risk. However, Wake Forest Health wishes to ensure the integrity of the Wake Forest Health website and its destination links, so any comments pertaining to the Wake Forest Health website or any sites accessed through Wake Forest Health links are greatly appreciated.

Surveys and Questionnaires

Our online surveys and questionnaires may ask visitors for contact and demographic information. The customer's contact information is used to contact the visitor when necessary. Users may opt-out of receiving future mailings; see the choice/opt-in section below. Demographic and profile data is also collected at our site but is only used for internal analysis for improving our websites.

E-Commerce and E-Healthcare Transactions

Some Wake Forest Health site features may use applications to collect data to facilitate an e-commerce or e-healthcare transaction. We will ask your explicit permission to transfer this data to the third party to facilitate this transaction.

Wake Forest Health may store this information to verify the transaction for customer service and accounting reasons and may use this information to help personalize your experience on the Wake Forest Health site.

Public Forums

Wake Forest Health provides its users with chat rooms, forums, message boards and/or news groups. Please remember that any information disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.

Security

The Wake Forest Health website has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Wake Forest Health employs strict security measures to safeguard online transactions.

Children’s Guidelines

Some sections of Wake Forest Health may be designed specifically for use by children under the age of 16. Contact information such as their name and e-mail address, and demographic information such as their ZIP code or age may be requested in those sections. In such cases, children will be notified that they should obtain permission from their parents before providing such information.

Wake Forest Health does not disclose personally identifiable information about users under 16, whether or not an approval is obtained. Parents and those permitting minors to use the Wake Forest Health website should be aware that any information voluntarily given by children in chat sessions, e-mail exchanges, BBS's, forums, etc., may be used by third parties to generate unsolicited mail or other contact with children.

Choice/Opt-In

Our site gives users the opportunity to opt-in to receive communications from us and our partners at the point where we request information about the visitor.

This site also gives users the following options for removing their information from our database in order to stop receiving communications or our service.

You can send email to webteam@wakehealth.edu

You can send mail to the following postal address:

E-Business Marketing Manager
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Medical Center Boulevard
Winston-Salem, NC 27157

You can call the following telephone number: 336-716-4587

Correct/Update

This site gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided:

Contacting the Website

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this website, or your interaction with this website, contact:

Security and Privacy Officer
Wake Forest Health, Inc.
Medical Center Boulevard
Winston-Salem, NC 27157
webteam@wakehealth.edu

Website Access Agreement

Please see our website Access Agreement for other terms and conditions governing your use of the Wake Forest Health website.