Terms of use and Privacy Policy for Yale School of Medicine and Yale Medicine Websites

The information and content on Yale School of Medicine and Yale Medicine websites are provided for your convenience and general educational information only, and are not intended as medical advice nor to replace the relationship that you have with your health care professionals. If you have a question related to your medical care, please communicate with your Yale Medicine provider through MyChart, which is secured for that purpose.

Please read these Terms of Use (the “Terms”) carefully before accessing or participating in any website or other online platform or service available on or through medicine.yale.edu, yalemedicine.org or other Yale School of Medicine or Yale Medicine sites (the “Site” or “Sites”). The Terms are an enforceable agreement between Yale University (“Yale”) and you, the user of the Sites, whether you are a student, faculty member, staff member, alumnus/a, group, association, corporation, patient, caregiver, physician, referring physician, or other individual or organization. Terms such as “we”, “our” and “us” refer to Yale University. By using and accessing the Sites, you acknowledge that you have read the Terms and agree to be bound by and comply with them. If you do not agree to be bound by and comply with the Terms, you are not authorized to use the Sites. Yale reserves the right to modify the Terms at any time in its sole discretion, and will publish notice of any such modifications on this site. Any modified Terms are effective immediately upon posting. By continuing to access any Site after Yale posts notification of modified Terms, you agree to be bound by and comply with them. If you do not agree to the Terms, please do not enter the Sites. If you are not yet eighteen years of age, a parent or guardian may agree to be bound by the Terms on your behalf.

Nothing in the Terms overrides the application of other rules and policies of Yale or other agreements between you and Yale. For example, your use of the Site is also subject to:

• The Yale Information Technology Appropriate Use Policy
• If you enter into any other agreement with Yale, for example regarding health plan coverage, then the Terms are in addition to the terms of such other agreement. Neither your acceptance of the Terms, nor visiting any Site, guarantees that you are eligible to receive coverage under any plan offered through any Site or otherwise.

If you are experiencing a medical emergency, you should not rely on any information on the Site and should seek appropriate emergency medical assistance, such as calling “911”. You should always talk to your health care professionals for diagnosis and treatment, including information regarding which drugs or treatment may be appropriate for you. Statements made by any persons on these Sites are not intended to substitute for discussion or evaluation with your health care professional or provide any guarantee as to outcomes. Nothing on these Sites represents or warrants that any particular drug or treatment is safe, appropriate or effective for you. Health information changes quickly. Therefore, you should always confirm information with your health care professionals.

The Sites are intended for a United States audience. If you live outside the United States, you may see information on the Sites about products or therapies that are not available or authorized in your country.

Yale is committed to protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your medical information. 

Website Privacy

Our Privacy Policy describes the collection and use of information about you on the Sites, and explains how we will safeguard your privacy. Please review these carefully as they form a part of these Terms of Use and are fully incorporated herein.

Patient Privacy

Please review our Patient Rights on the Yale HIPAA site if you are looking for information about your Patient Rights or the Notice of Privacy Practices.

The names, marks, logos, seals, devices and designs associated with Yale University, Yale School of Medicine, and Yale Medicine are trademarks and service marks of Yale or its affiliates (collectively, “Yale Trademarks”). All other trademarks or service marks appearing on the Site are the trademarks, service marks, or logos of their respective owners. No trademark or service mark appearing on the Site may be used without the prior written consent of the mark’s owner. You may not use Yale Trademarks without valid, written authorization from Yale. Additionally, you may not use Yale Trademarks in any manner that (a) will likely cause confusion about the source of any product or service or (b) falsely implies or represents that Yale sponsors, endorses, or is affiliated with any third-party activity. You may not register any domain names containing any Yale Trademarks without Yale’s prior written consent in each case.

• Interfering with the operation of the Sites, or, restricting, disrupting or inhibiting any other user from using and enjoying the Sites and services;
• Posting or otherwise transmitting any unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, harassing, libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, or similarly objectionable or harmful material or information of any kind;
• Posting or otherwise transmitting any advertisement, promotion, or solicitation of goods or services for commercial or partisan political purposes;
• Posting or otherwise transmitting any information or software that contains a virus, worm, time bomb, Trojan horse, or other harmful or disruptive component that may compromise the security of the Sites;
• Posting, transmitting or otherwise using materials in violation of another party’s copyright, privacy, publicity or other proprietary right, or the terms of any contractual agreement or fiduciary relationship;
• Using the Sites or services for any commercial, partisan political or unlawful purposes;
• Copying, scraping, downloading, exporting, storing or otherwise capturing any data obtained via the Sites without proper written authorization by Yale;
• Modifying, adapting, sublicensing, translating, selling, reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling any portion of the Sites;
• Misrepresenting your identity, or, sharing or otherwise transferring user account information to any person other than the registered user authorized by Yale to use such account;
• Accessing or attempting to access any portion of the Sites to which you have not been explicitly granted access;
• Directly or indirectly authorizing anyone else to take actions prohibited in this section; or
• Otherwise using the Sites or any services, information and content available on or through the Sites in violation of the Terms or applicable law.

Where authorized, you may submit any text, images, data, information, content or other materials (collectively, “Materials”) to the Sites. In doing so, such Materials will be considered non-personal and non-confidential (except for personal information as described in the Privacy Policies), and you hereby grant to Yale a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, assignable, worldwide right and license to link to, use, reproduce, transmit, modify, adapt, practice, publish, display, perform, distribute, translate, and create derivative or collective works from, any such Materials, in whole or in part, throughout the world in any media, including all intellectual property rights therein, unless otherwise agreed in writing with Yale. You acknowledge and agree that any Materials submitted by users of any Site represent the opinions of the specific author and are not statements of advice, opinion or information of Yale. Any such Materials is no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for any purpose.

By submitting Materials to any Site, you certify ownership authority to grant such rights to Yale and acknowledge that the burden of determining whether any such Materials are protected by copyright rests solely with you.

Further, you are solely responsible for Materials submitted by you, and Yale assumes no responsibility or liability for Materials submitted by you or any other visitor to the Sites. We may, but are not obligated to, restrict or remove any and all Materials that we determine in our sole discretion violates the Terms or is otherwise harmful to us, other Site visitors or any third party. We reserve the right to remove Materials you submit at any time, but you understand that we may preserve and access a backup-copy, and we may disclose such Materials if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, preservation or disclosure is required by law or in the best interests of Yale.

Any Materials you submit will be routed through the Internet and you understand and acknowledge that you have no expectation of privacy with regard to any such Materials. Never assume that you are anonymous and cannot be identified by your submissions. You hereby grant Yale and any of its sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with the Materials, if they choose. You represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the Materials submitted by you; that such Materials are accurate; that use of such Materials does not violate the Terms, and will not cause injury to any person or entity; and that you will indemnify Yale and its officers, trustees, employees, representatives and agents for all third-party claims resulting from Materials you submit.

Certain areas of the Sites are protected by usernames and passwords and may be accessed only by members of the Yale community. All user names are subject to review and approval by Yale. If you have a user name and password for accessing any Site, you agree not to share them with any other person, including any person who may have his or her own user name and password. You agree that the user name and password for your account is personal to you only, and you will not access or attempt to access any other user’s account, or misrepresent or attempt to misrepresent your identity, while using the Sites or any services. You are responsible for all uses of your user name and password to gain access to any Site and for all activity under them, including the use of any information or material obtained by using them. Yale may terminate your account or authorization to access any Site and/or services at any time, without notice, for conduct that Yale believes violates the Terms or other applicable policies, rules or regulations of Yale.

If you become aware of any unauthorized use of your account, another user’s account or any other portion of the Sites, you agree to notify the Yale School of Medicine Communications Office by telephone at (203) 785-5824, email at ysm.editor@yale.edu, or in writing at: Yale School of Medicine Office of Communications, 1 Church St, Suite 300, New Haven, CT 06510, and to provide prompt reasonable assistance at the request of Yale and/or its representatives to address any violations of the Terms as determined by Yale.

You acknowledge and agree that Yale has the right, but not the responsibility, to monitor the Sites and Site-related services, including, without limitation, comments, chat rooms, message boards and forums. Yale reserves the right to refuse to post, or to remove, any information or materials, in whole or in part, that is in violation of the Terms in its sole discretion. Yale is not a publisher of user-generated content on the Sites, or of any content that may be available through them, and, with regard to such content, is acting solely as an Internet service provider (47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1)). Neither Yale nor any Yale-affiliated entity screens, approves, reviews or endorses any such content.

You may not create links to any Site from any website with content that is fraudulent, threatening, harassing, libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, or similarly objectionable or harmful, or in a manner that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party (directly or indirectly), or otherwise give rise to liability, violate any law or falsely imply Yale’s sponsorship, endorsement or approval of your or another party’s site or activities. Additionally, Yale, in its sole discretion, has the right to require that you remove links to any Site.

As a courtesy, the Sites may contain links to websites controlled by third parties. Yale is not responsible for these third-party sites or their content, activities or privacy practices. The inclusion of links on the Sites does not imply Yale’s endorsement of the linked web sites, their content, or any associated organization or activity. Yale makes no representation or warranty whatsoever about the nature of the linked sites. You should read the privacy policies and terms of use that govern your use of other sites before accessing and using their services.

Copyright Yale University 2016. All Rights Reserved.

In consideration for your agreement to the Terms, where authorized, Yale grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to view, access and use the Sites. You may also print a reasonable number of copies of information and content available on or through the Sites for your personal, non-commercial and educational use only, provided that you reproduce all copyright, trademark and proprietary notices (for example, some Sites may include trademarks or logos belonging to third-party licensors and are used pursuant to an agreement with such third parties), and you comply with all other terms or restrictions that may be applicable to that material. Although parts of the Site are freely accessible, Yale does not intend to cede its respective rights, or the rights of third parties, to information and content available on or through the Sites. By accessing, downloading or printing information and content from any Site, you agree that there is no explicit or implicit transfer of ownership rights, and any and all rights, title and interest in and to the Sites, including all services, information and content available on or through the Sites, and all intellectual property rights, including all copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret rights therein, shall remain with Yale and our third-party licensors, as applicable. You may not otherwise copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, exploit or otherwise transfer any such information or content unless permission to do so is specifically granted by Yale. Because Yale does not hold the copyright to certain materials on the Sites, Yale cannot grant or deny permission to use those materials. Accordingly, you are solely responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials you may wish to use, to investigate the owner of the copyright, and to obtain permission for your intended use, if appropriate.

Yale intends that all information and content on the Sites respect the copyright and other proprietary rights of third parties. However, Yale cannot monitor the copyright ownership of all such material. If you believe that any material posted on the Sites infringes your copyright, then you may request the removal of those materials from the Site in accordance with the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), and the procedures described below.

A notice of infringing material that complies with the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) (“Notice”) must be sent to the agent Yale has designated with the Copyright Office:

Chief Information Security Officer
Yale University
150 Munson Street (25 Science Park)
Room 132
New Haven, CT 06511
Tel: (203) 436-5872
Fax: (203) 436-8292
copyright@yale.edu

To comply with the Copyright Act, your Notice must be in writing and must include the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works;
3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit Yale to locate the material;
4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit Yale to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which you may be contacted;
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury, and that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

When Yale receives a Notice that complies with the Copyright Act, it will remove the identified material immediately. Yale will promptly take reasonable steps to inform the user who posted the allegedly infringing material (the “alleged infringer”) of the Notice and subsequent removal. The alleged infringer may then provide Yale with a counter-notice (“Counter-Notice”) that the initial infringement notice was erroneous. Such Counter-Notice must be in writing and must include:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the alleged infringer;
2. Identification of the material removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled;
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that the alleged infringer has a good-faith belief that the material was removed or access to it disabled as a result of error;
4. The alleged infringer’s name, address, and telephone number; and
5. A statement of consent to jurisdiction in federal district court and that the alleged infringer consents to service of process from the complaining party or its agent.

Upon receipt of a Counter-Notice, Yale will notify you of the Counter-Notice and restore the material within 10 to 14 business days of receipt of the Counter-Notice, unless you inform Yale that you have filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the allegedly infringing party from engaging in infringing activity relating to the material on the Site.

The Sites and services, information and content available on or through any of them are provided “as is” and “as available.” Yale does not warrant that the Sites or any such services, information or content will be uninterrupted or error-free. There may be delays, omissions, interruptions and inaccuracies in such services, information and content. Yale makes no representations or warranties about the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, reliability or non-infringement thereof, including user content, or of any services, information or content available through links to other websites. Yale reserves the right to correct any errors or omissions in the Sites. If you rely on any services, information and/or content available on or through the Sites, you do so entirely at your own risk.

You specifically acknowledge that Yale is not liable for the defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct of other users or third parties, and that the risk of injury from this type of conduct rests entirely with you. Your sole remedy for dissatisfaction with any Site or any services, information and/or content available on or through any Site is to stop using the Site and/or those services, information and content.

To the maximum extent permitted under law, Yale disclaims all express or implied warranties with respect to the Sites and any services, information and content that are available on or through them, including without limitation, any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose (even if that purpose has been disclosed) and non-infringement.

Although Yale intends to take reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, “Trojan horses” or other malicious code to the Sites, Yale does not guarantee or warrant that the Sites, or any services, information and content that may be available on or through the Sites, are free from such destructive features. Yale is not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features. It is up to you to take any and all precautions to ensure that the services, information and content you access and use from any Site or any hyperlinked website is free of such items of a destructive nature.

Yale and its officers, trustees, employees, representatives and agents are not liable for any claim of any nature whatsoever based on loss or injury because of errors, omissions, interruptions or inaccuracies in the Sites or any services, information or content available on or through the Sites, including loss or injury that results from your breach of any provision of the Terms. 

Under no circumstances will Yale or its officers, trustees, employees, representatives or agents be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substituted services or materials; loss of use, data, revenues or profits; or business interruption) arising in any way out of or in connection with your use of any Site or any services, information or content available on or through the Sites or the Terms, however caused and regardless of the theory of liability, whether in tort (including negligence of any kind), contract, statutory, or any other legal or equitable theory, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. 

Some states do not allow the limitation of liability for certain kinds of damages, so some of these limitations or exclusions may not apply to you.

1. your breach of the Terms;
2. your violation of the Code of Conduct (as set forth above); or
3. your activities in connection with any Site or Site-related services. 

• If you are concerned about your patient privacy rights, please contact the Yale HIPAA Privacy Officer at 203-432-5919 or hipaa@yale.edu. 
• If you have an issue relating to a Yale School of Medicine or Yale Medicine website, email us at ysm.editor@yale.edu, and we will forward your concern to the appropriate unit for response or resolution.
• Please read our Privacy Policy about the collection, use and protection of information about you on the Sites.