Website Privacy Policy

Effective Date August 2024 – Revised, December 2024

Note: This Privacy Policy relates specifically to our website. For HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices, please visit https://www.wakemed.org/patients-and-visitors/patient-rights-and-privacy-policies and select “Patient Notice of Privacy Practices.”

WakeMed and its affiliates (referred to in this Privacy Policy as “WakeMed,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Policy.

By accessing or using this website, including any content, functionality, products, and services delivered through wakemed.org (collectively, the “Site”), you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use.

As you browse the Site, you may also be able to access websites that are operated by third parties that are not part of WakeMed. Neither this Privacy Policy nor any other WakeMed policy apply to websites or mobile applications that are operated by third parties.

About this Policy

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to tell you how WakeMed collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information accessed by or through the Site.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, you must not use or access the Site. We will update this Privacy Policy from time to time and will update the Effective Date accordingly. Your continued use of the Site after changes have been made is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so we encourage you to periodically review the Privacy Policy to remain informed of how we use and protect your personal information. Our use of personal information gathered or accessed is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of such access.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to information that has had identifiers removed or other actions taken so that you are no longer identified in the data (“de-identified data”). For example, identifiers such as your name, date of birth, or other data elements may be removed from certain data sets. WakeMed may use and share with third parties any de-identified data for any purposes permitted by applicable law, such as for WakeMed or third party operations, research, or development or provision of services or products.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, the Site, or your personal information, please contact us by telephone at (919) 350-8115 or submit a “Contact Us” form at https://www.wakemed.org/contact-us.

Information Collected –

We collect personal information that you provide to us when you:

  • Provide information to open an account
  • Respond to a survey
  • Fill out a form
  • Submit or provide content
  • Engage in other activities, services, features or resources we make available on the Site

We collect several types of information from and about individuals who access or use the Site. Information you provide to us may include your:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Phone number
  • Email address
  • Information pertaining to your health
  • Information related to your employment or affiliation with us
  • Other demographic information, such as
    • Your zip code
    • Age
    • Gender
    • Preferences, interests and favorites
    • Other personal information you provide to us

How Information is Used

The information collected is used by us and businesses directly associated with us for the following purposes:

  • To provide services to you.
    • We use the information you provide to us to provide the services you have requested.
    • We may share your personally identifiable information with our other businesses or affiliates, our agents, contractors, or business partners so that they can perform services for us, including the delivery of services, product information, and other valid business communications to you on our behalf.
  • To improve customer service.
    • Information you provide helps us to respond to your customer service requests and support needs more efficiently.
  • To improve user experience.
    • We may use information in the aggregate to understand how our users as a group use the services and resources provided on the Site.
  • For the purposes specified at the time of collection.
    • If you need to provide personal information to access features or services on this Site, we will clearly disclose how the information will be used.
  • For research, presentations, publications, and to improve access to care.
    • We conduct analytics on user demographics, interests, and behaviors based upon information provided to us during use of our Site. We may combine your information with information collected from other individuals to produce aggregated and statistical information.
  • As otherwise required or permitted by law.

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personally identifiable information to others.

In the event WakeMed engages in a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another organization, or sale of all or a portion of its products or assets, your personal information will likely be transferred. We will make every effort to notify you via email, letter, or public posting of any such change in the control of your personal information. At the time of our notification, you will be given a clear choice to allow or not allow the use of your personal information for secondary purposes such as product information, research, and other valid business communications.

Passive Information Collection

As you navigate through this Site, certain information can be passively collected (that is, gathered without your actively providing the information) using various technologies, such as cookies, Internet tags, web beacons, or navigational data collection (log files, server logs, clickstream). This information typically does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include information such as:

  • The IP address of the device that you are using;
  • The URL of the website you just came from;
  • The browser name and the device that you are using; and
  • Technical information about your computer or other device, such as the operating system and the service provider you are using, and other similar information.

This information is generally not considered personally identifiable unless it is combined with account information, contact information, or other information that is unique to you.

This Site may use and combine such information to provide better service to Site visitors, customize the Site based on your preferences, compile and analyze statistics and trends, and otherwise administer and improve the Site for your use. Such information is not combined with personally identifiable information collected elsewhere on the Site unless you have consented to such use.

Cookies

We use cookies (a small file stored on your computer and maintained by your browser) to record information from your time visiting our Site. Cookies may contain different types of information such as your Site preferences and login information, including for portals related this website, such as the MyChart log-in page, job applications, and class registrations. We do not use cookies to retrieve information from your computer or device for purposes that are unrelated to the Site or your interaction with the Site. You may set your browser to notify you when a cookie is sent or to refuse cookies altogether, but certain features of this Site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.

Analytics Technologies

We may use analytics technologies (the “Analytics Technologies”) to collect and process certain information about you and your use of our Site. The information collected by the Analytics Technologies is statistical data. We typically do not connect this statistical data with identifiable information like name or phone number, although the Analytics Technologies may associate information with a geographic location or other potential identifier. This statistical information helps us understand the number and type of users that access our website.

Analytics Technologies in use on the WakeMed website include:

  • Piwik Pro: Piwik Pro is a privacy-friendly analytics platform that allows us to monitor and evaluate user engagement with our website without capturing identifiable user data. This allows WakeMed to provide website content about services and locations that is valuable to visitors. We honor opt-out preference signals and include a website consent notice that allows visitors the ability to opt- in or opt-out of this analytics technology.
  • Eloqua – Eloqua is a data analytics tool that is used to create and monitor email marketing campaigns. WakeMed uses the data generated by Eloqua to better target health information messages to the appropriate groups of patients and community members.

Additionally, WakeMed’s job posting site, jobs.wakemed.org, utilizes Google Analytics. Google Analytics is not used on WakeMed’s patient-facing websites. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about visits to jobs.wakemed.org is restricted by the Google Privacy Policy (located at  https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/). If you do not want your information collected with Google Analytics, you can install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. To opt-out of Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page (located at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout) and install the add-on for your browser. For more details, visit the “Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on” page (located at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en).

Information Sharing

As mentioned above, we may share information about you with other parties who provide services to us. For example, we may contract with third parties that process end user data to facilitate the provision of services to WakeMed or its users. Frequently this information is not personally identifiable, but personally identifiable information may be shared if necessary for them to provide services to us. We may share your information in the following ways:

  • With third party service providers that help us operate our business or administer activities on our behalf.
  • With companies that provide services to us, such as hosting services.
  • With companies that are disclosed to you at the time you provide the information.
  • As permitted or required by law; for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena, or to prevent or investigate a crime or fraud.

Additionally, we may share information if necessary to enforce this Privacy Policy or Terms of Use. We reserve the right to report to appropriate law enforcement or government agencies activities that we, in good faith, believe to be harmful or unlawful, with or without providing notice to you.

Do Not Track Policy

We adhere to the standards set out in this Privacy Policy and we do not currently respond to “Do Not Track” signals/requests on our Site.

Use of Personal Information

If you supply us with your postal or email address, you may receive periodic emails or mailings from us with information on products and services provided by WakeMed, upcoming events, and other promotional information.

Persons who supply us with their telephone numbers may receive telephone contact from us with information regarding WakeMed products and services, upcoming events, and other promotional information. By supplying us with this information, you authorize all WakeMed entities and providers and all of their affiliates, subsidiaries, employees, contractors, and agents to contact you, including using autodialed calls, texts, robocalls, and artificial voices or prerecorded voices, at the telephone numbers you provided with regard to information about services, billing, collections and other account activities, and for advertisement and telemarketing purposes.

You understand that is not possible to guarantee that any transfer of information over text messaging or e-mail is 100% timely, complete, accurate, private or secure. As a result, we cannot guarantee the absolute timeliness, completeness, accuracy, privacy or security of your information when it is sent via a text message or e-mail. By asking us to transmit information to you through text messaging or e-mail, you accept all risks associated with the transmission.

Opt-Out

If you do not want to receive email, postal mail, or telephone contact from us in the future, please let us know that you want to be put on our “do-not-contact/share” list by contacting us by either submitting a “Contact Us” form at  https://www.wakemed.org/contact-us or calling us at (919) 350-8000. When doing so, please provide us with your exact name, email and/or postal address, and telephone number. We will be sure your name is removed from our mailing lists and added to our “do-not-contact/share” list within a few days.

Payment Portal

We supply information to the service providers and payment gateways that enable us to process credit card payments. Credit card information may be stored temporarily to process refunds and/or recurring payments, as requested at the time of disclosure. When utilizing those payment gateways or service providers, you will be subject to that provider’s terms of use and privacy policy.

Other Sites

As a resource to our visitors, we provide links to other sites. We try to carefully choose sites that we believe are useful and meet our standards. However, we do not guarantee the standards of every site to which we link, nor are we responsible for the content of non-WakeMed sites. Links to external sites may be provided only for convenience and/or for informational purposes, and in no way constitute an endorsement by WakeMed.

Please be aware that third-party sites that have links on our sites may collect personally identifiable information from you. These third parties may also use cookies or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our Site. The information they collect may be associated with your personally identifiable information or they may collect information, including personally identifiable information, about your online activities over time and across different sites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with targeted content. We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. The information practices of those sites linked to us, either through advertisements or other hyperlinks, are not covered by this Privacy Policy. We suggest that when linking to another site, you always read that site’s privacy policy before volunteering any personally identifiable information on that site.

Children

This Site (with the exception of the MyChart portal made available to adolescent patients) is not intended for children under the age of 18. We will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information through this Site from visitors under the age of 18. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under the age of 18, please contact us by any of the means listed in our “How to Contact Us” section below.

Security

We have implemented reasonable safeguards that help assure that we commit to collect, process, and use personal information in accordance with applicable laws. WakeMed operates networks protected by firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of the Site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Do not share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personally identifiable information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personally identifiable information transmitted through the Site. Any transmission of personally identifiable information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures we provide.

Updating Your Information

You may contact us through the contact processes identified above if you believe information you have submitted to us through the Site is incorrect. Your information can only be deleted in accordance with our data retention policy and as permitted by law. Further, information may remain in databases, access logs, backup media, and other records. We cannot update or remove information from records of third parties.