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Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency
Health Services Agency Web Policies

The County of Santa Cruz adheres to high Internet standards to protect user's privacy, observing and championing appropriate net etiquette, linking externally to other web sites without endorsements, and aiming for factual information throughout. To that end, here is a look at what we expect from users of our site. 

Terms and Conditions of Use: This web site is intended to provide residents of the County of Santa Cruz with generalized information about programs, services and activities of the Health Services Agency, a department of the County of Santa Cruz local government.

Use of this web site is subject to these Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree to all of these Terms and Conditions of use, do not use this site.

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency may revise and update these Terms and Conditions at any time. Your continued usage of the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency web-site will mean you accept these changes.

This web-site is governed and constituted by the laws of the State of California. Any use of the web-site shall comply with all County of Santa Cruz and California laws and regulations as well as with all federal laws and regulations. Any lawsuit or claim arising from this web-site shall be brought in the County of Santa Cruz Superior Court, Santa Cruz, California.

• This site does not provide medical advice.

• Privacy Notice

• Linkage

• Explicit or Otherwise Offensive Material

• Children's Protection and Privacy

• Persons with Disabilities

• Use of Content

• Use of Communications Forums

• Liability of the County of Santa Cruz

• General Statement of Intent

• Indemnity

• Jurisdiction

• Does the County of Santa Cruz Share Information With Anyone?

The contents of the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency web site such as text, graphics, images, information, or other material ("Content") contained on the site are for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified and licensed health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. You should never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read or seen on this site. If you believe you may have a medical emergency, you should call your doctor or 911 emergency services immediately. Reliance on any information appearing on this site is solely at your own risk.

Privacy Notice

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency values your right to privacy and confidentiality regarding health related matters and issues. We strongly believe and understand that health is a very personal, private subject. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible while visiting our web-site and wish to reassure you that we will make every reasonable effort to protect your privacy and confidentiality regarding health or medical matters.

As a County health care provider, all information collected by the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency as part of the official medical record of any client or recipient of medical services is legally protected, confidential and private. The County of Santa Cruz complies with State and Federal regulations regarding the confidentiality and release of patient or client medical record information.  If you are receiving direct health care services from the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency, you may want to review our Patient/Client Notice of Privacy Practices available from your County physician or health care provider and also available on this web site.

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency does not as a practice routinely collect any personally identifiable information on this web-site except when explicitly and voluntarily submitted by you through E-mail, responses to surveys, questionnaires and the like.

We may collect information about you and your use of our site through the use of cookies, counters, Java applets, Java script, ActiveX controls, site logs or other similar technologies. The collection of such information is used for aggregate demographic and statistical information only. Individual identifying information will not be used by our organization or shared with other individuals, entities or organizations without your express written permission, except as required by law or as ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction under subpoena power.

Exception to this privacy and confidentiality policy may be made when it is determined that any person or person(s) may be utilizing or attempting to utilize this web site and/or it associated computer network and systems for illicit or unlawful purposes as determined by the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency. In this case, the names, locations or other potential identifying information of such person or persons may be provided to duly constituted law enforcement authorities or other lawfully authorized investigative personnel, upon recommendation of County Counsel.

Linkage

The County of Santa Cruz may provide links to external web sites in hopes that users will find useful reference material or information on health related subjects. Because the County of Santa Cruz cannot control these sites, it cannot be held responsible for content included in them. Moreover, in no way should an external link be considered any form of endorsement by the County of Santa Cruz.

Explicit or Otherwise Offensive Material

This site may contain health or medical related materials which some persons may find sexually explicit or otherwise offensive. This site is not intended or designed to attract children under the age of 13. All materials posted by the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency to this web site have been reviewed and approved by the County of Santa Cruz Public Health Officer or his/her designee and have been found to be medically appropriate and compatible with the usual and customary community health standards existing within the County of Santa Cruz. These County of Santa Cruz standards may differ substantially from those residing in other communities for which this web-site information is not intended.. Those persons from outside the County of Santa Cruz who may visit this site understand and agree the content is intended for and compatible with the community standards within the County of Santa Cruz only and is not intended to be viewed, judged or otherwise compared to any other community's standards.

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency may in the future develop specialized health or health education related web-sites designed to attract children under the age of 13. In this event, the Agency will endeavor to contain links from such site or sites to those County web pages that the County Public Health Officer or his/her designee has determined are appropriate for viewing by persons under the age of 13 years in accordance with the community standards of the residents of Santa Cruz County.

Children's Protection and Privacy

The County of Santa Cruz is committed to protecting the privacy of children. You should be aware that this site is not generally intended or designed to attract children under the age of 13. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we actually know is a child under the age of 13. The privacy notice above also applies to any children accessing this web site content.

Persons with Disabilities

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency and it various programs and services are accessible to all residents with disabilities. We have made special efforts with this web-site to make it accessible to residents with disabilities including those who are sight impaired, hearing impaired, or otherwise disabled. Special reasonable accommodations will be made for any County resident who has difficulty using this web-site to access or utilize County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency programs and services. For assistance, the Agency may be contacted by telephone at (831) 454-4000, or TDD (831) 454-4123, or directly by mail or in-person at the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency, 1080 Emeline Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95060.

Use of Content

You understand content of this web-site may be protected by copyright law. The content on this web site may be viewed by you as a resident of the County of Santa Cruz, but you are not authorized to transmit this right to others without the express written permission of the County of Santa Cruz. A single copy of any material on the web site may be downloaded by you without further permission from the County of Santa Cruz for your personal, non-commerical use if you include the following copyright notice: "Copyright © 2000 County of Santa Cruz - All Rights Reserved."

Title to the Content of this site vests with the Copyright holder. Any use of the content of this site not expressly permitted by these Terms and Conditions is a breach of these Terms and Conditions and may violate copyright, trademark and other laws.

Use of Communications Forums

This web site may contain discussion forums, chat rooms and other communication forums. By participating in any of these forums, you agree to send and receive messages that are both proper and related to the forum topic. The following materials are prohibited:

• Materials that illegally discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition (cancer related), marital status, sex, sexual orientation, age (over 18), veteran status, gender, pregnancy or other factor.

• Defaming, harassing, threatening or materials otherwise violating the legal rights of others, including their privacy (see privacy policy above);

• Misrepresenting one's person, background or character;

• Posting any defamatory, infringing, obscene, false or unlawful material.

• Selling, advertising, offering to sell, or exchanging any good or services without a specific permit authorized by the County of Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors.

• Posting any copyrighted or other material owned by a third party.

You also agree that use of any County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency communications forum is at your own risk. While championing proper use of such forums, the County of Santa Cruz cannot control or guarantee that violations of the above code will not occur.

Liability of the County of Santa Cruz

Use of County of Santa Cruz web-sites, including this web-site are at your own risk.

Information transmitted to or from this web site may be transmitted over a medium which is beyond the control and jurisdiction of the County of Santa Cruz. The County of Santa Cruz assumes no liability related to the access, lack of access, delay, failure, interruption, corruption or possible interception or alteration by unauthorized third parties of any information transmitted to or from this web site.

This site and its content are provided on an "as is" basis. The County of Santa Cruz to the fullest extent permitted by law, disclaim all warranties, either express or implied, statutory or otherwise, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, non-infringement of third parties rights, and fitness for any particular purpose.

Specifically, the County of Santa Cruz makes no representations or warranties about:

• The accuracy, reliability, completeness, or timeliness of the content of this web site, software, text, graphics, links, or communications.

• The ability of any person to access or be unable to access this web-site for any reason.

In no event shall the County of Santa Cruz, its officials, employees, agents and volunteers be liable for any damages (including without limitation, incidental and consequential damages, personal injury/wrongful death, lost profits, or damages resulting from lost data or business interruption) resulting from the use or inability to use the site or the site content whether based on warranty, contract, tort, or any other legal theory, and whether or not the County of Santa Cruz is advised of the possibility of such damages.

General Statement of Intent

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency is based in Santa Cruz, California, in the United States of America. This web-site and all of its associated content is intended for exclusive use by County of Santa Cruz residents. The County of Santa Cruz makes no claims that the web-site or its content is appropriate or may be accessed or utilized outside of the geographical confines of the County of Santa Cruz. If you access this site from outside of the County of Santa Cruz, you do so completely at your own risk and are responsible for compliance with the laws of your jurisdiction.

Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold the County of Santa Cruz, its officials, employees, agents and volunteers harmless from and against any and all claims, demands, losses, damages, defense costs, or liability of any kind or nature which COUNTY may sustain or incur or which may be imposed upon it for injury to or death of persons, or damage to property as a result of, arising out of, in any manner connected with your use of this site or alleged to result from your violation of these Terms and Conditions. Such indemnification includes any damage to the person(s) or properties of yourself and any third persons.

Jurisdiction

You expressly agree that exclusive jurisdiction for any dispute with the County of Santa Cruz, or in any way relating to your use of the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency web-site, resides in the courts of the County of Santa Cruz, without respect to its conflict of laws principles. If any of these Terms and Conditions is found be invalid by any court having competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of such provision shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of these Terms and Conditions, which shall remain in full force and effect. No wavier of any of these Terms and Conditions shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or condition or any other term or condition.

Does the County of Santa Cruz share information with anyone?

Like most web-sites, this County of Santa Cruz web-site may collect two types of information: anonymous information and personally identifiable information.

Anonymous information is data that cannot be linked to specific individuals. We may log user hits, visits, and sessions, but only capture information about the visiting user's service provider. This data helps us to better design this web-site to improve services to the public. As an example, if statistic indicate heightened interest in domestic violence as an issue for County of Santa Cruz residents, we would likely enhance and expand web materials on this and related subjects.

"Cookies" are another type of anonymous information. A web-site cookie is a small text file that a web server (such as the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency server) places on a user's computer.

When accessing a cookie, the web server reads a number associated with a browser, but it is unable to determine any data about the user, nor can it do anything damaging or malicious to the user's computer. With the cookie number, the web server can tailor the information it provides to the needs of the specific browser. The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency uses cookies very rarely. Most browsers allow you the - user - to select whether or not to accept cookies or whether or not to accept a specific cookie. Please refer to your browser Help file or manual for further information on this.

Personally identifiable information refers to data on specific individuals who have volunteered the information on certain County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency web pages. This could include a user's name, address, e-mail address, phone number, credit card number, or other personal information. For example if you were to send us an E-mail with a health related question you might have, we would receive your E-mail address to respond to your question.

Personally identifiable information will be used by the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency only on a need-to-know basis and will not be made accessible or disclosed to unauthorized persons at any time.

(Please refer to Privacy Policy above)

• Who is collecting the information?
  The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency may collect anonymous and personal information and may occasionally contract with partners to collect information on behalf of the County of Santa Cruz as well. The County of Santa Cruz and its partners are required to adhere to the privacy policy of this web site.
• How is the information protected?
  The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency and its partner web servers contain state-of-the-industry security precautions that protect personal information from being stolen or tampered with. If you are requested to submit a credit-card number or other highly confidential information, that information will be protected by secure server software (SSL) and the data will be encrypted before being sent securely across the Internet.
• Does the County of Santa Cruz share information with anyone?
  Unless you give written consent, the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency will not sell, lease, or give away personally identifiable information to other governments, organizations, or private business within the limits of the law.

  It is important for you to know that public governmental entities such as the County of Santa Cruz have a responsibility under the law to balance the needs of personal privacy and confidentiality with the public's right to access public records and information. For example, while the medical data of a client or patient of the County of Santa Cruz is protected, privileged confidential data under law, the release of birth certificate or death certificate information is public information available to anyone who requests it also under state law.

  Similarly, certain information about your property or business such as ownership, development permits, operating permits, etc., is a matter of public record under California law, other information such as employment application information and the like is not available for public review and inspection.

  Furthermore, public information would typically include non-confidential or non-protected correspondence with the County, including E-mails and web-site comments about county processes, policies activities and other general correspondence.

  However, correspondence regarding client-specific medical information is not public information.

  For further information regarding California law on public disclosure requirements, please visit the following web-site location:

  http://www.thefirstamendment.org/

  For information regarding the federal Freedom of Information Act, please contact:

  http://www.epic.org/open_gov/citizens_guide_97.html

  Outside of legal requirements and extreme emergencies, personal information on the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency web-site will not be released to anyone without the consent of the user.

   Mailing Address: County of Santa Cruz  Health Services Agency
   1080 Emeline Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 | Phone: 831 454 4000 | Fax: 831 454 4770
   Hearing Impaired TDD: 831 454 2123 | copyright© 2000 County of Santa Cruz