Terms and Conditions of Use

1. Agreement in Regard to Your Use of This Site

This website www.nuvancehealth.org (the “Site”) and its related services (the “Services”) are provided by: Nuvance Health and its affiliates as listed, including but not limited to Western Connecticut Health Network, Inc. and its affiliates The Danbury Hospital (“Danbury Hospital”), The Norwalk Hospital Association (“Norwalk Hospital”), Nuvance Health Medical Practice CT, Inc., and Western Connecticut Home Care, Inc., and Western Connecticut Health Network Affiliates, Inc., and Health Quest Systems, Inc. and its affiliates Northern Dutchess Hospital, Putnam Hospital, Vassar Brothers Medical Center, Sharon Hospital, Nuvance Health Medical Practice, P.C., and Health Quest Home Care, Inc. (collectively, “Nuvance Health,” “our,” “us,” or “we”) and is subject to your agreement to comply with the terms and conditions of these Terms and Conditions of Use (“Terms of Use”). Please read it carefully. All information we collect on this Site is also subject to our Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.NuvanceHealth.org. By using the Site, you consent to all actions taken by us with respect to your information in compliance with the Privacy Policy. If you do not want to agree to these Terms of Use or our Privacy Policy, you must not access or use the Site. Your continued use of the Site is deemed to constitute your full agreement to all of these Terms of Use.

This Site is offered and available to users who are eighteen (18) years of age or older and reside in the United States or any of its territories or possessions. By using this Site, you represent and warrant that you are of legal age to form a binding contract and are not a person barred from receiving the Services provided by the Site under the laws of the United States or other applicable jurisdictions. The Site is directed to those individuals and entities located in the United States. It is not directed to any person or entity in any jurisdiction where (by reason of nationality, residence, citizenship or otherwise) the publication or availability of the Site and its content, including its Services, are unavailable or otherwise contrary to local laws or regulations. If this applies to you, you are not authorized to access or use any of the information on this Site. Nuvance Health in no way implies that the information, opinions, advice or other content on the Site is appropriate or that its services are available outside of the United States. Those who choose to access this Site from other locations do so at their own risk and are responsible for compliance with applicable local laws.

You may use the Site, and the information, writings, images and/or other works that you see, hear or otherwise experience on the Site (singly or collectively, the "Content") solely for your non-commercial, personal purposes and/or to learn about Nuvance Health and its services, its facilities and its employed and affiliated physicians and other healthcare professionals.

2. Accuracy and Integrity of Information

The information presented on or through the Site is made available solely for general information purposes. Although Nuvance Health attempts to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the Site, it is not under any obligation to update the Content and makes no guarantees whatsoever as to the usefulness, correctness or accuracy of the information on this Site. It is possible that the Site could include typographical errors, inaccuracies or other errors, and that unauthorized additions, deletions and alterations could be made to the Site by third parties. Any reliance you place on such information is strictly at your own risk. We disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by you or any other visitor to the Site, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.

3. No Medical Advice

This Site does not provide medical advice, including diagnosis. Nothing you read or learn on this Site should be considered to constitute medical advice as the Site is provided for general information and educational purposes only. Information on this Site is not intended to create any physician-patient or provider-patient relationship. The medical/treatment-related information you obtain from this Site might be inappropriate for your own situation or might be misinterpreted. Nuvance Health assumes no responsibility for how you use the information you obtain from this Site. Although we strive to keep our information up to date, medical information changes rapidly, and some information may be out of date. For advice about your own health situation, including diagnosis and/or treatment, please consult with your personal physician or other healthcare professional. Discussion of any medical intervention on this Site, including any diagnostic procedure, any surgical or other invasive procedure or any treatment including the use of any drug, device or biologic, does not imply endorsement or recommendation by Nuvance Health or any of our employed or affiliated physicians or other healthcare professionals.

4. Electronic Communications

By visiting the Site or by sending e-mails to us, you are knowingly and voluntarily consenting to receive communications from us electronically. We will communicate with you by e-mail or by posting notices on this Site. You agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing. If you would like to opt out of receiving electronic communications from us, you may do so by using the unsubscribe functions at the bottom of our communications.

5. Use License

Permission is granted to view and use Nuvance Health’s Site. As a condition of your use of the Site, you agree that you will not use the Site for any purpose that is unlawful or that is otherwise prohibited by these Terms of Use. You may not use the Site in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the Site. You agree that you are responsible for your own conduct while using the Site and for any consequences thereof. You agree to use the Site only for purposes that are legal, proper and in accordance with these Terms of Use. By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree that when using the Site, you will not:

Obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available or provided for through the Site;
Use any device to retrieve any portion of the Site or collect information about users for any unauthorized purpose or attempt to decompile or reverse engineer any software contained on the Site;
Remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices from the materials or contained in or on the Site or transfer the materials to another person or “mirror” the materials on any other computer or server;
Restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the Site;
Post or transmit through the Site any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, sexually explicit, discriminatory or otherwise objectionable material of any kind, including, but not limited to any material that encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law;
Interfere with or disrupt the Site or servers or networks connected to the Site, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Site; or
Transmit any viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses or any items of a destructive nature.

You agree that Nuvance Health shall decide, in its sole discretion, if your conduct violates any aspect of these Terms of Use and that Nuvance Health may take whatever action it deems appropriate to address such violation including, without limitation, notification of appropriate authorities and removal of your access to the Site.

6. Confidential and Proprietary Information / Visitor Submissions

We welcome any comments you may have regarding the Site and its Services. Any such comments or content you submit to us, such as remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics or other information, becomes and remains the exclusive property of Nuvance Health, even if these Terms of Use or any other agreement you have entered into with us is later terminated or amended. This means that we do not have to treat any such submission (including, but not limited to, product or advertising ideas) as confidential. We will not pay you or anyone else for any information that you provide which is used by us. Additionally, you acknowledge that you have full responsibility for any such submission you make, including its legality, reliability, appropriateness, originality and non-infringement.

7. Visitor Chat Rooms and Other Interactive Areas

If the Site should provide areas where visitors can transmit or post communications or communicate solely with each other, including, but not limited to, chat rooms, bulletin boards and other user forums, Nuvance Health may, but is not obligated to, monitor or review any of these areas of the Site. You understand and agree that Nuvance Health will have no liability related to the content of any such communications, whether or not arising under the laws of copyright, libel, privacy, obscenity, tort, contract, etc. Nuvance Health retains the right to remove, in its sole discretion, communications that include any material deemed abusive, defamatory, obscene or otherwise inappropriate.

8. Intellectual Property Rights

The Site and its features, functionality and Content (including, but not limited to all information, software, text, displays, images, video and audio, and the design, selection and arrangement thereof) are owned by Nuvance Health, its licensors or other providers of such material, and are protected by U.S. and/or foreign copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other intellectual property or proprietary rights laws. No right, title or interest in the Site or any Content is transferred to you, whether as a result of downloading Content or otherwise. You may download and reprint Content for non-commercial, non-public, personal use only and not for further reproduction, publication or distribution. Your computer may temporarily store copies of such materials in related to your accessing and viewing of the Site and Content. You may store files that are automatically cached by your web browser for display enhancement purposes. If you are using this Site as an employee of Nuvance Health, you must abide by these Terms of Use, as well as any additional terms or obligations Nuvance Health has established for its employees. Except as expressly authorized by this Terms of Use, you may not reproduce, modify, publicly display, publicly perform, republish, download, use, alter, copy, distribute, store, transmit or derive another work from any Content obtained from the Site or the Services, except as expressly permitted by these Terms of Use.

9. Trademarks

The trademarks, service marks, trade names and logos used on this Site are the property of Nuvance Health or its content suppliers and are protected by United States and international laws. Nothing in this Site grants to you any license or right to use any trademark, service mark, trade name or logo without prior written permission of Nuvance Health, except as permitted by applicable law.

10. Links and Hyperlinks

Nuvance Health may provide links to various other websites that may be of interest to you and for your convenience only. This includes links contained in advertisements, including banner advertisements and sponsored links. Nuvance Health has no control over the contents of those sites or resources, has not reviewed these websites, and is not responsible for the contents, accuracy or reliability of any information contained within the websites. The inclusion of any link on our Site does not imply any endorsement by Nuvance Health of the websites. Use of any such linked website is at your own risk. Please read the terms of use policies of each website to which you may link from our Site. These Terms of Use apply only to this Site and the Services we offer. If you decide to access any of the third-party sites linked to this Site, you do so at your own risk. Nuvance Health reserves the right to remove any link or linking program from this Site, at any time, without notice to you.

Persons constructing other websites may link to any of the pages on our Site, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of our reputation, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on Nuvance Health’s part. You may not link to isolated elements on this Site (including photographs, illustrations, diagrams, buttons, text or any other elements whatsoever) for the purpose of "inlining" them into the context of other web pages, or for linking such isolated elements to other web pages. You agree to cooperate with us in causing any unauthorized framing or linking immediately to cease. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. Any other use will be a violation of copyright or other intellectual property right and could subject you to liability.

11. Termination

You may terminate these Terms of Use at any time by discontinuing your use of the Site at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Nuvance Health when you stop using the Site. You agree that Nuvance Health shall decide, at its sole discretion, if your conduct violates any aspect of these Terms of Use and that Nuvance Health may take whatever action it deems appropriate to address such violation including, without limitation, notification of appropriate authorities and removal of your access to the Site and/or any Nuvance Health products or services. You alone are responsible for the content and consequences of any of your activities.

12. Warranty Disclaimer

This Site, including any Content or information contained within it or any Site-related Service, is provided “as is,” with all faults, with no representations or warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. Nuvance Health does not warrant or make any representations regarding the use or the results of the use of the materials on this Site in terms of their correctness, accuracy, reliability or otherwise. The materials in this Site could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. These materials could be inaccurate or become inaccurate as a result of developments occurring after their respective dates. Nuvance Health undertakes no obligation to verify or maintain the currency of such information. You assume total responsibility and risk for your use of this Site, Site-related Services and hyperlinked websites. No oral or written information or advice by Nuvance Health or its affiliates or authorized representatives shall create a warranty or in any way increase the scope of this warranty.

Nuvance Health makes no warranty that (i) the operation of the Site will meet your requirements; (ii) access to the Site will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, free of viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other harmful components, or free of defects or errors; (iii) the results that may be obtained from the use of the Site will be accurate or reliable; or (iv) defects will be corrected. You (and not Nuvance Health) assume the entire cost of all servicing, repair or correction that may be necessary for your computer equipment and software as a result of any viruses, errors or any other problems whatsoever you may have as a result of visiting this Site. You hereby agree to hold harmless and indemnify Nuvance Health, and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents, and employees, licensors, suppliers, partners, successors, and assigns, harmless from and against all liability, losses, damages, and expenses (including, without limitation, defense costs and associated reasonable attorney’s fees and associated costs) associated with any claim, action or demand brought against Nuvance Health arising out of (a) any breach of or violation of these Terms of Use; (b) any information you submit, share or upload on or to the Site; and/or (c) any claim that information or content that you provide violates any applicable law or otherwise infringes the rights of a third party. You shall cooperate fully in the defense of any claim. Nuvance Health reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you.

13. Limitation of Liability

Nuvance Health and its affiliates, suppliers, employees, agents, officers or directors shall not be responsible nor liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, punitive or other damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, those resulting from lost profits, lost data or business interruption) arising out of or relating in any way to the Site, Site-related Services, Content or information contained within the Site, and/or any hyperlinked website, whether based on warranty, contract, tort or any other legal theory and whether or not advised of the possibility of such damages. Your sole remedy for dissatisfaction with the Site, Site-related Services and/or hyperlinked websites is to stop using the Site and/or those Services. Applicable law may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.

14. Indemnification

You understand and agree that you are personally responsible for your behavior on the Site or the behavior of persons under your control, such as minor children. You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Nuvance Health, its affiliates, subsidiaries, staff, business partners, licensors, employees, agents and any third-party information providers to the Services from and against all claims, liabilities, losses, judgments, awards, expenses, damages and costs (including, but not limited to, direct, incidental, consequential, exemplary, and indirect damages), and reasonable attorneys’ fees, resulting from or arising out of your use, misuse, or inability to use this Site, the Service, or the Content or any violation by you of these Terms of Use.

15. Infringement Claims

Infringement Notification Procedure. If you are an intellectual property rights owner or an agent thereof and believe that any content posted to this Site infringes upon your intellectual property rights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by providing the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C §512(c)(3) for further detail):

A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
Identification of the work claimed to have been infringed or, if multiple works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;
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 the service provider to locate the material;
Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail;
A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the owner, its agent or the law; and
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Such information should be sent to compliance@nuvancehealth.org. You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with all of the requirements set forth above, your DMCA notice may not be valid.

Counternotice. If you have had your content removed under the above take-down procedure and believe that the content is not infringing, you may send a counternotice containing the following information to compliance@nuvancehealth.org:

Your physical or electronic signature;
Identification of the content that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the content appeared before it was removed or disabled;
A statement that you have a good faith belief that the content was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or a misidentification of the content; and
Your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court in Washington, D.C., and a statement that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement.

If a counternotice is received by Nuvance Health, Nuvance Health may send a copy of the counternotice to the original complaining party informing that person that it may replace the removed content or cease disabling it in ten (10) business days. Unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the content provider, member or user, the removed content may be replaced, or access to it restored, in ten (10) to fourteen (14) business days or more after receipt of the counternotice, at Nuvance Health’s sole discretion.

16. Enforcement / Choice of Law / Choice of Forum

If any part of these Terms of Use is determined by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, it will not impact any other provision of these Terms of Use, which will remain in full force and effect. Any and all disputes relating to these Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy, your use of the Site, the Service or the Content are governed by, and will be interpreted in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York, without regard to any conflict of laws provisions. All actions must be brought in a federal or state court of competent jurisdiction court located in Dutchess County in the State of New York.

17. Entire Agreement; Right to Change These Terms of Use

These Terms of Use constitute the entire agreement between you and Nuvance Health pertaining to everything set forth in these Terms of Use. In its sole discretion, Nuvance Health may, from time to time, revise and update these Terms of Use by updating this posting. All changes are effective immediately when we post them. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of revised Terms of Use means that you accept and agree to the changes. You should, therefore, periodically visit this page to review the current Terms of Use, so you are aware of any such revisions to which you are bound. Certain provisions of these Terms of Use may be superseded by expressly designated legal notices or terms located on particular pages within this site.

18. Your Comments and Concerns

This Site is operated by Nuvance Health. All feedback, comments and other communications relating to the Site should be directed to compliance@nuvancehealth.org.

Effective: August 19, 2019

Last updated: August 1, 2023