Privacy and Confidentiality
Revised: July 2010
Purpose
This notice describes how information collected by Qlarant Web systems is used and disclosed. Please review this document carefully and contact our Corporate Security Officer at 1-800-999-3362 if you have any questions.
Who We Are
Qlarant is a not for profit corporation, incorporated in the State of Maryland. As a Health Care Quality Improvement Organization, we manage a great deal of confidential information for individuals, organizations, and government agencies. All Qlarant staff are educated in the protection of confidentiality and the handling of confidential materials.
Qlarant uses websites for many purposes, including education of the public concerning our organization, providing information to the public regarding health care and our services, and to support and assist with our many improvement projects. The type of information collected varies with the purpose of the site. Therefore not all of the provisions of this policy apply to every site, but every site is covered by this policy statement.
Information Collection and Use
Qlarant is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. Qlarant collects information from our users at several different points on our website, depending on the particular site.
Registration
Some sites may require registration before they can be used, or before allowing access to confidential services. During registration a user is required to give their contact information (such as name and email address). This information is used to contact the user about the services on our site for which they have expressed interest. The user may also be asked to provide demographic information (such as income level and gender), and unique identifiers (such as social security number). Any information that is not necessary for the purposes of the registration is clearly marked as optional.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user. Use of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. Once the user closes their browser, the cookie simply terminates. For instance, by setting a cookie on our site, the user would not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If a user rejects the cookie, they may still use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user may be limited in some areas of our site. For example, the user may not be able to receive custom information from our site or have information preloaded into some forms.
Log files
We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information. They maybe resolved to identify the name of the organization owning that IP address.
Sharing
We share information on the use of our sites with some of our customers, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, some State governments, and others. We do not provide personally identifiable information in these reports. Generally, these reports are for verifying the level and type of use of our Web sites.
| Note: If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this entity by phone or in writing. |
Links
A Web site may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that Qlarant is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.
Newsletters
Some sites may offer newsletters. If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact information such as name and e-mail address.
Surveys
From time-to-time some of our sites request information from users via surveys. Participation in these surveys is voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information (such as zip code, age level). Survey information may be for research purposes or for monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site.
Security
This Web site takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web site, the information is protected both online and off-line.
When our survey or registration form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as a social security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry – SSL. While on a secure page, such as a survey, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when you are just ‘surfing’.
While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users’ information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, a project manager or database administrator) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. Every quarter, as well as any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our customers’ information is protected. Finally, the servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment, behind a locked cage.
If you have any questions about the security at our website, you can contact our our Corporate Security Officer at 1-800-999-3362.
Notification of Changes
We reserve the right to amend this policy as necessary without prior notice. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our site so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of an email. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.