Privacy Policy

Professional Health Systems Inc. User Agreement.

Professional Health Systems recognizes that privacy is a personal right and a critical concern of individuals. This concern is heightened when using the World Wide Web and particularly when using a healthcare-related site. We invite users of the Professional Health Systems medical reference and our other services to familiarize themselves with our privacy policy, which delineates how Professional Health Systems obtains and uses personal information. The policy is divided into the following sections:

Why we obtain information about use of our site
What information is obtained and how it is used
What information is shared and with whom it is shared
Summary statement

Why we obtain information about use of our site

Professional Health Systems gathers 3 basic types of information from our users.

First, our contributing physicians, authors, and editors create and maintain the content of the site using group publishing software. This software requires appropriate identification and password-secured authorization of contributors to the site.

Second, users who choose to register provide information. This helps us to understand who our users are and to shape our content accordingly.

Third, we collect information about site use. This helps us to identify needs, such as the amount of serving power required, and to communicate generalized statistics about usage numbers, page views, and visit durations to investors, sponsors, and advertisers.

What information is obtained and how it is used

Contributing physician authors and editors submit contact and credential information. We use contact information to help manage the site and to facilitate communication between authors and editors. Each article displays contributors’ basic credential information and affiliations. Professional Health Systems stores other information about contributors’ education, training, and accomplishments in a secure manner that is not distributed.

Visitors may access some Professional Health Systems content without registering and providing personally identifiable information. We track information provided to us by individuals’ browsers, including originating Web sites (known as "referring URLs"), types of browsers used, times and dates of site visits, and other information that does not personally identify users.

We only require registration to access certain parts of the Professional Health Systems site. Users who choose to provide information about themselves help us to assess the interests of our audience.

Registered users may be contacted by Professional Health Systems in order for us to provide updates about the site. Professional Health Systems makes use of aggregate information to inform sponsors, advertisers, and other corporate partners about our users in general. No identifying or individual registration information is shared with sponsors or any other corporation. In the future, we may allow an outside agency, such as an accounting firm, access to individual information solely for verification and counting purposes.

Use of Cookies
Professional Health Systems obtains information about visitors' site use and offers features such as personalized start pages. Some of this information is gathered through exchange of cookies, which are small packets of information that flow from the site to the users' computers and back. Browsers can be set to accept or reject cookies or to notify users each time a cookie is sent. If a browser is set to reject cookies, Web sites that are cookie enabled will not recognize visitors when they return to the Web site, and some Web site functionality may be lost. Browser Help sections contain instructions regarding cookie acceptance/rejection settings.

Cookies do not normally contain personally identifiable information; however, we may associate users’ registration information with cookies our Web site places on the users’ computer hard drives. Associating a cookie with registration data allows us to deliver personalized start pages and enables our Web site to recognize user names and passwords, thus permitting regular visitors to bypass the sign-in process. Without cookies, this function is not possible.

A user’s personal information may be used to help us target our advertising or marketing efforts. For example, a user registering as an ophthalmologist may receive advertising for new vision products (although the advertiser will not have access to any individually identifiable information).

What information is shared and with whom it is shared

Professional Health Systems shares only aggregate information about site use and user demographics. Professional Health Systems uses this aggregate information internally to help us determine resource needs and develop content.

Summary statement

Professional Health Systems gathers information needed to operate the site and to understand the demographics of our users via direct registration. We obtain additional information about site traffic and use via cookies. We do not share, exchange, or sell personal information to any corporate entity. We may share some demographic and use information in aggregate form only. Occasionally, information may be used to directly communicate with contributors and registered users in order to manage the site and update users. Companies that supply us with ads may also obtain information via cookies or when users click on a link that sends them from our sites.