Garfield Medical Center
Social Media Terms and Conditions
Terms and Conditions:
We welcome and encourage open discussion on Garfield Medical Center’s
social media sites - including but not limited to: our blogs, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube pages and online story-sharing forums - and look forward
to any comments, stories and experiences you want to share.
We make reasonable efforts to monitor participation to ensure that you
stay on topic, are courteous, and avoid making offensive comments. Please
remember that information posted on any of our social media platforms
should not be considered medical advice and should not replace a consultation
with a health care professional.
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call your local emergency
number. (In the United States, call 911.)
Please be aware that once you post something online, there is the potential
for thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people to read your words.
As a result, we suggest that you exercise caution when posting medical
information on any of our social and digital media sites and that you
do not disclose personal identifiable information such as your location,
medical record number, financial information, etc.
Garfield Medical Center stands by its mission statement, which is “To
provide world-class healthcare to our diverse community with compassion,
safety, efficiency, and service excellence.” This mission statement
guides our social media policies. Garfield Medical Center reserves the
right to delete comments that violate patient privacy, are abusive or
off topic or that contain foul language, spam or advertisements for commercial
products. Disagreements and feedback/criticism are welcome, but mutual
respect is a must.
Our Privacy Policies
As an organization providing health care services, we are prevented by
law from publicly providing any information about our patients, even if
the information has already been disclosed by a patient, friends or family
members online (health information privacy is covered by the federal government’s
Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, commonly referred to in health care as HIPAA).
When patients wish to have Garfield Medical Center publicize information
about their care, we work with these patients to complete a formalized
written and signed authorization to address their concerns before sharing
a patient’s information with the public. In all other situations,
we place an absolute priority on rigorously adhering to our discipline
of preserving our patients’ privacy. This is a discipline that we
carefully follow no matter how eager individuals may be to receive answers
on social media.
Official Policy:
The opinions and/or views expressed on Garfield Medical Center social media
platforms, including, but not limited to, our blogs, Facebook and Twitter
pages, YouTube, and online story-sharing forums, represent the thoughts
of individuals and online communities and not necessarily those of Garfield
Medical Center or any of its affiliates or any of their respective directors,
officers, employees, research staff, medical staff or members of their
respective boards of directors. The opinions and views expressed on these
pages do not in any way reflect the views of the site they are posted
on, other sites affiliated with the site, the staff involved with maintaining
the site or any members of the site.
Use of Garfield Medical Center social media does not create a physician-patient
relationship with any Garfield Medical Center medical professional. Garfield
Medical Center social media sites are made available with the understanding
that the content and service providers are not engaged in rendering medical,
health, psychological or any other kind of personal professional services
through these sites. Users should consult with a medical, health, or other
competent professional before taking any action or drawing any inferences
based upon the information accessed or viewed through the sites; any action
taken by a user in response to information obtained from a social media
site is at the user’s discretion. Nothing displayed on any Garfield
Medical Center social media site should be relied upon to replace or overrule
a licensed health care professional’s judgment or clinical diagnosis.
Users are responsible for content submitted to social media sites. You
may not submit any material or content that infringes any patent, trademark,
copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party. You agree that you
will not violate any local, state, federal, and international laws and
regulations, including those related to copyright and other intellectual
property rights. You further agree that you will not submit any information that:
- is disruptive, threatening, abusive, profane, harassing, embarrassing,
defamatory, libelous, obscene, hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise
objectionable, as solely determined by Garfield Medical Center;
- contains any product or service advertisements or endorsements;
- can be construed as political lobbying.
Users may not make any commercial use of any Garfield Medical Center social
media site or any content, code, data, or materials on or available through
Garfield Medical Center social media sites. Users may not download, post,
display, publish, copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, perform, broadcast,
create derivative works, sell, or otherwise exploit any content, code,
data, or materials on or available through Garfield Medical Center social
media sites. Users also agree not to alter, edit, delete, remove or otherwise
modify the meaning, appearance or purpose of any content, code, data or
materials on or available through Garfield Medical Center social media
sites, including, but not limited to, altering, obscuring or removing
any trademarks, trade names, logos, or other proprietary rights notices.
While Garfield Medical Center makes reasonable efforts to monitor and/or
moderate content posted on its social media platforms, we do not moderate
all comments and cannot always respond in a timely manner to online requests
for information.
Garfield Medical Center reserves the sole right to review, edit and/or
delete any comments it deems are inappropriate. Comments including but
not limited to the following may be deleted or edited by the moderator:
- Abusive or hurtful comments about a blogger or another participant;
- Off-topic and redundant comments (this includes promotion of events, groups,
pages, Web sites, organizations and programs not related to or affiliated
with Garfield Medical Center);
- Comments that use foul language or "hate speech" (for example,
including but not limited to, racial, ethnic, or gender bashing language);
- Personal attacks or defamatory statements or comments (i.e., making negative
personal or untrue comments about a participant), instead of just criticizing
his/her posting, opinion or comments;
- Comments that violate the privacy of our patients and their families or
Garfield Medical Center staff.
Information posted on Garfield Medical Center’s social media sites
is not intended to be medical advice and should not be considered medical
advice, nor is it intended to replace a consultation with a qualified
physician or other health care provider.
All links to other Web sites found linked from Garfield Medical Center
social media sites are provided as a service to readers, but such linkage
does not constitute endorsement of those sites by Garfield Medical Center,
and as such, Garfield Medical Center is not responsible for the content
of external Web sites.
By submitting content to any Garfield Medical Center social media site,
participants understand and acknowledge that this information is available
to the public, and that Garfield Medical Center may use this information
for internal and external promotional purposes. Please note that other
participants may use posted information beyond the control of Garfield
Medical Center. If a participant does not wish to have the information
made available via the site used, published, copied and/or reprinted,
the participant should not post on the page. Garfield Medical Center may,
without any liability to a participant, disclose a participant’s
communications and activities with Garfield Medical Center social media
in response to lawful requests by governmental authorities, judicial orders,
warrants or subpoenas, or for the protection of Garfield Medical Center’s rights.
Questions or comments about Garfield Medical Center’s Social Media
Terms and Conditions? Email:
GMC4U@ahmchealth.com.