Social Media Guidelines
Purpose
Mather Hospital supports the exchange of information that may impact, improve and enhance the lives of the people in the community it serves. Mather Hospital has publicly accessible pages on social media sites that include but are not limited to various blogs, bulletin boards, networks, multi-media and news media sites or other user generated content sites (“Social Media Sites”). The Social Media Sites hosted by Mather Hospital are environments to share information and maintain interaction in a timely manner with the Hospital’s community and various constituencies. To keep the sites informative and interesting, we ask that you respect the rules of these Social Media Sites as well as Mather Hospital’s Social Media Policy. Policy
By posting on any Social Media Site, you agree to these terms:
By accessing, viewing or posting any content related directly or indirectly to Mather Hospital on any Social Media Site, you accept, without limitation or qualification, the following terms of use. If you do not agree to the terms of this Policy, you may not view or post any content to any Social Media Site. Your use of Social Media Sites constitutes the acceptance of this Policy and has the same effect as if you had actually physically signed an agreement. As a guest posting content, you agree that you will not: violate any local, state, federal and international laws and regulations, including but not limited to copyright and intellectual property rights laws regarding any content that you send or receive via this Policy; transmit any material (by uploading, posting, email or otherwise) that is unlawful, disruptive, threatening, profane, abusive, harassing, embarrassing, tortuous, defamatory, obscene, libelous, or is an invasion of another's privacy, is hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable as solely determined at Mather Hospital’s discretion; impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity; transmit any material (by uploading, posting, email or otherwise) that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships; transmit any material (by uploading, posting, email or otherwise) that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party; transmit (by uploading, posting, email or otherwise) any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising (including advertising of non Mather Hospital services or products), promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes" or any other form of solicitation; transmit any material (by uploading, posting, email or otherwise) that contains software viruses, worms, disabling code, or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; harass another; or collect or store, or attempt to collect or store, personal data about third parties without their knowledge or consent; or to share confidential pricing information of any party. You are prohibited from engaging in social media networking that involves posting or otherwise disseminating, including private messaging, the Hospital logo, trademarks, trade secrets or confidential information about the Hospital, or its employees, patients, customers or affiliates. If you are a Mather Hospital employee or volunteer, you must adhere to the Social Media Guidelines for Mather Hospital Employees and Volunteers posted on the Mather Hospital Intranet site. You must also adhere to all other Hospital policies including Appropriate Use of Computer Hardware, Software and Media and those pertaining to patient privacy (HIPAA), employee Code of Conduct, False Claims Acts Policy, Conflict of Interest, Email and Internet Use and standards of behavior
You are prohibited from posting any content that is personal health information including patient images on any Social Media Site. You are also prohibited from using the Social Media Site to provide medical advice or medical commentary by non-Mather Hospital physicians. Mather Hospital reserves the right to monitor, prohibit, restrict, block, suspend, terminate, delete, or discontinue your access to any Social Media Site pages, at any time, without notice and for any reason and in its sole discretion. Mather Hospital may remove, delete, block, filter or restrict by any other means any materials in Mather Hospital’s sole discretion. You understand and agree that Mather Hospital may disclose your communications and activities with Mather Hospital in response to lawful requests by governmental authorities, including Patriot Act requests, judicial orders, warrants or subpoenas, or for the protection of Mather Hospital’s rights. You agree that in the event that Mather Hospital exercises any of its rights hereunder for any reason, Mather Hospital will have no liability to you. By posting any content on any Social Media Site pages, you grant to Mather Hospital the irrevocable right to reproduce, distribute, publish, display such content and the right to create derivative works from your content, edit or modify such content and use such content for any Mather Hospital purpose. You shall defend, indemnify, and hold Mather Hospital and its corporate affiliates and their respective officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, successors and assigns harmless from and against, and shall promptly reimburse them for, any and all losses, claims, damages, settlements, costs, and liabilities of any nature whatsoever (including reasonable attorneys' fees) to which any of them may become subject arising out of, based upon, as a result of, or in any way connected with, your posting of any content to a Mather Hospital Social Media Site, any third party claims of infringement or any breach of this Policy. You expressly acknowledge that you assume all responsibility related to the security, privacy, and confidentiality risks inherent in sending any content over the internet. By its very nature, a website and the internet cannot be absolutely protected against intentional or malicious intrusion attempts. Mather Hospital does not control the third party sites and the internet over which you may choose to send confidential personal or health information or other content and, therefore, Mather Hospital does not warrant any safeguard against any such interceptions or compromises to your information when posting any content on an internet site, you should think carefully about your own privacy in disclosing detailed or private information about yourself and your family. Furthermore, Mather Hospital does not endorse any product, service, views or content displayed on the social media site. You agree that any claim or dispute relating to your posting of any content on a Social Media Site on the internet shall be construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York without regard to its conflict of laws or provisions and you agree to be bound and shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the local, state or federal courts located in New York State. You may not provide any content to a Social Media Site that contains any product or service endorsements or any content that may be construed as political lobbying, solicitations or contributions or use the Social Media Site to link to any sites or political candidates or parties or use the Social Media Site to discuss political campaigns, issues or for taking a position on any legislation or law. You may disagree with another post or voice a concern, but please do so in a polite and constructive manner. Obscenities, personal attacks, and defamatory comments about any person, group, organization or belief will be removed. We will correct or remove factual errors. Mather Hospital reserves the right to remove any inappropriate posts. An employee’s failure to comply with the social media policy can result in disciplinary action being taken up to and including termination and, if appropriate, the Hospital reserves all rights to pursue legal remedies with respect thereto. THIS POLICY MAY BE UPDATED AT ANY TIME WITHOUT NOTICE, AND EACH TIME A USER ACCESSES A SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE, THE NEW POLICY WILL GOVERN, USAGE, EFFECTIVE UPON POSTING. To remain in compliance, Mather Hospital suggests that you review the Policy, as well as the other website policies, at regular intervals. By continuing to post any content after such new terms are posted, you accept and agree to any and all such modifications to this Policy.
