Privacy Policy
Privacy and Legal Notices
We understand that medical information about you and your health is personal and private. We are committed to protecting your medical information, and actively work with families, employees, vendors, and outside agencies to promote and maintain your privacy.
To respect your medical privacy, we ask that you share medical information with your family and friends as you believe to be appropriate.
Although you identified an emergency contact during the admissions process, that person will only be contacted for urgent matters.
Notice of Privacy Practices - HIPAA
The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) Privacy Rule gives individuals a fundamental right to be informed of the privacy practices of their health care providers, and to be informed of their privacy rights with respect to their personal health information (PHI). The required notice is available for you to download below:
If you are having trouble accessing these documents or would like them in another format, please contact our Privacy Office at 717-531-2081.
Confidential admission
You may request confidential admission if you do not want others to know that you are a patient at Penn State Health. If you make such a request, callers and visitors will be told you are not a patient. Mail, gifts, and flowers sent to you will be returned to the sender or to the florist.
Request for privacy
If you are in a semi-private room, visitors may be asked to leave if you or the patient sharing the room requests privacy to discuss medical issues.
E-mail
By its nature, the Internet is not secure. Do not use electronic mail (e-mail) to send or to request sensitive information. Penn State Health cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any messages transmitted over the Internet.
Some caregivers prefer not to communicate with their patients via e-mail. Following your discharge, check with your caregiver’s office by telephone before sending e-mails. If your caregiver accepts e-mail, ask the caregiver’s office what information needs to be included in the subject line and whether you need to include your full name, date of birth, and medical record number in the body of your note. If you do use e-mail, restrict its use to routine matters or for requesting information.
Photography and Recording Guidelines
Help us protect the privacy and safety of all our patients and caregivers
The capabilities of hand-held smart devices such as phones and tablets make it very easy for us to connect with our surroundings. We love to take pictures and videos of things we see and do as a way to record and remember important moments. Some of these moments happen right here at Penn State Health.
To ensure your privacy and safety, we ask all patients and visitors to be extremely cautious when using their mobile devices to document experiences in patient care areas on Penn State Health property and to refrain from recording their experiences without the consent of everyone involved, including Penn State Health physicians, nurses, and other staff. Realize that recording videos in patient care areas may be a violation of the law and could disrupt caregivers.
What should be done?
To ensure the privacy and safety of everyone visiting and working at Penn State health we ask that you follow these simple rules:
- Always respect the privacy and rights of others. Realize that taking unwanted photographs and videos of patients, visitors and Penn State Health workforce members may violate law and disrupt the treatment of patients.
- Always receive consent from anyone you wish to photograph or record.
- Do not take photographs of or record anyone who has declined consent or is not able to consent.
- Do not take photographs or record videos in public areas where others may be accidentally included. Public areas include, entry ways, cafeterias, corridors and waiting rooms.
- Patients and visitors are welcome to take photographs and record videos in private treatment areas when no other patients, visitors or Penn State Health workforce members are present.
Following these rules will:
- Protect the legal rights and privacy of people visiting and working at Penn State Health.
- Prevent legal action from being taken under state or federal law.
- Contribute to a safe and comfortable environment for our guests and workforce.
- Prevent you from being be asked to leave our property.
Website Privacy Policy
Overview
Penn State Health is committed to safeguarding your privacy on our websites. We operate under the following set of privacy principles:
- A visitor can access and browse our entire site at any time without providing any personal information. The only information Penn State Health obtains about individual visitors to its websites is that supplied voluntarily by visitors.
- In cases when Penn State 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 Penn State Health may do so.
- Personally identifiable information will not be shared at any time without the visitor's permission. Penn State Health employs strict security measures to safeguard online transactions.
- The Penn State Health website is intended for adults and young adults age 13 and over. It is not intended for or designed to attract persons under the age of 13.
View Privacy Policy
Personal information
A visitor can access and browse our entire site at any time without providing any personal information. The only information Penn State Health obtains about individual visitors to its websites is that supplied voluntarily by visitors. In addition, Penn State Health does not share any personally identifiable information of any individual with any third party unrelated to Penn State Health, except in situations where we must provide information for legal purposes or investigations, or if so directed by the patient through a proper authorization.
- Forms: Our website contains forms through which users may request information or supply feedback to us. In some cases, telephone numbers, email addresses or return addresses are required so that we can supply requested information to you, and in other cases, correct names and addresses are required to process credit card payments. After you complete a form, we may contact you with follow-up information. We do not provide any information supplied on our Web forms to any outside organization for any reason, other than where we may be required to by law or as necessary to process credit card information. We do not save this personal information for any other reason.
- E-Commerce and E-Healthcare transactions: Some Penn State 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. Penn State 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 our website.
- Public forums: Penn State Health may provide 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.
- Surveys: Occasionally, we may survey visitors to our site. The information from these surveys is used in aggregate form to help us understand the needs of our visitors so that we can improve our site. We generally do not ask for information in surveys that would personally identify you. If we do request contact information for follow-up, you may decline to provide it. If survey respondents provide personal information (such as an email address) in a survey, it is shared only with those people who need to see it to respond to the question or request.
- Email: Unsecured information transferred over the Internet is similar to a postcard being sent through the mail. We recommend that you do not send sensitive personal health information to email addresses found on the Penn State Health website or anyone else using unsecured means. Should you choose to supply confidential information in this manner, you do so at your own risk. If you feel that this type of information is necessary to provide to us, please call our CareLine at 800-243-1455 to speak directly to the party with whom you want to receive the information.
- "Phishing" is a scam designed to steal your personal information. If you receive an email that appears to be from Penn State Health asking you for your personal information, do not respond. We will never request your password, user name, credit card information or other personal information through email.
- Choice/Opt-in: Our website gives users the opportunity to opt-in to receive communications from us which requires information from you. This may include use of third-party websites to manage the subscription and delivery of information via email, and if so, you should carefully review the privacy policy of that Website. We make every effort to ensure that privacy policies of Web services we use for communication purposes have privacy policies consistent with our privacy policy, and that they comply with U.S. CAN-SPAM laws. All opt-in email communication services will provide a method for you to opt-out/unsubscribe and/or change your contact information from every email message you receive. We do not sell, trade, rent or share personal information about our users to or with any other organizations. We will use your email address only to send you the e-newsletters which you have chosen to receive.
- User name and password: In the event you access any service requiring a User Name and Password, you are solely responsible for keeping such User Name and Password strictly confidential.
- Security: The Penn State Health website has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Penn State Health employs strict security measures to safeguard online transactions.
Non-Personal information
Automatic collection of information: As you browse our website or download information, our system will automatically gather and store certain information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally and is used in aggregate only to help us understand Website visitor behavior and interests, leading to improvements for future visits to our website.
Cookies: Cookies are used to track user activity throughout our website. They are not used to associate individual user activity with personal or identifiable information to be shared with any other organizations. We use the data provided to understand user session activity and help us improve the website visitor experience in general. We do not automatically gather individual names, email addresses or other individually identifiable information.
The following information is automatically collected and recorded during your visit:
- Aggregate information on which pages are accessed
- Web browser software name and release number (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.)
- Operating system (Windows, Mac, etc.)
- Date and time of website visit
- website address that linked to us (referrer URL)
- IP Address: All computer identification on the Internet is conducted with IP addresses, which allow computers and servers to recognize and communicate with each other. An IP address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. Penn State Health collects IP addresses in order to conduct system administration and to conduct site analysis. To maintain visitor anonymity, Penn State Health does not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information. We use this information internally to improve our services. Although these statistics may be provided to others, they do not contain, and cannot be used to obtain, personal information about any individual website user.
How do we use the information we collect?
The information we gather automatically is used only by a select group of Penn State Health employees to:
- Monitor, review, measure, and analyze website utilization
- Modify and enhance the website
- Improve the content and design of our website
- Determine the need for new programs and services
- Monitor and improve our customer service efforts
- Study general usage habits and demographic information for our own marketing research purposes
- Determine the effectiveness of health promotion and marketing programs
External links
Some Penn State Health websites provide links to other internet sites that provide health information. Penn State Health is not responsible for the content or privacy statements of those websites. If you are asked to supply personal information to those websites, we suggest you carefully read the privacy statements of those websites. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.
Children's privacy
We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. The Penn State Health website is intended for adults and young adults age 13 and over. It is not intended for or designed to attract persons under the age of 13. We do not permit registration by, nor do we collect personally identifiable information from, any person we actually know to be under the age of 13.
Changes in our privacy policy
From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, please check our Privacy Statement periodically.
Contacting the website
If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this website, or your interaction with this website, contact:
Web Solutions Office: webmarketing@pennstatehealth.psu.edu
Website access agreement
Please see our Website Access Agreement for other terms and conditions governing your use of the Penn State Health website