Terms of Use

Thank you for visiting WhyNotTheBest.org (the "Web site"). The Web site was created and is maintained by The Commonwealth Fund (the "Fund"), a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system. For further information on The Commonwealth Fund, please visit www.commonwealthfund.org.

These terms and conditions (the "User Agreement") are a legally binding agreement between the Fund and you concerning the Web site. Your use of this Web site constitutes an acceptance of these terms and conditions as set forth in this User Agreement on behalf of yourself and your entity, if applicable. We may change the terms of this User Agreement from time to time without notice and in our sole discretion. You will always be able to view the most current version of this User Agreement by clicking on the "Terms and Conditions" link at the bottom of any page on our Web site. The Fund may terminate your access to and use of the Web site at any time in the event that you breach any of the provisions of this User Agreement.

By clicking on "I agree," or by accessing, using, or browsing this Web site, you acknowledge and confirm that: i) you have read and understand all of the terms and conditions of this User Agreement; ii) you agree to be bound by all of the terms and conditions of this User Agreement and acknowledge that this User Agreement is the legal equivalent of a signed, written contract between you and the Fund; and iii) you have read, understand and agree to the Web site's privacy policy, which is subject to change at the Fund's sole discretion and without notice.

You agree not to:

a) post, email, or otherwise make available content to the Web site that:

• is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, obscene, harassing, defamatory, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, or is harmful to minors in any way;
• is personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent
• infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party, or content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships;
• constitutes or contains "affiliate marketing," "link referral code," "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or unsolicited commercial advertisement;
• contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; and
• will adversely affect the reputation of the Fund or otherwise place the fund in disrepute.

b) use the Web site to harass, degrade, or intimidate an individual or group of individuals;

c) impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a Fund employee or a user other than yourself;

d) disrupt the normal flow of dialogue on the Web site with an excessive amount of content (flooding attack), or that otherwise negatively affects other users' ability to use the Web site; or

e) use the Web site for commercial purposes;

f) share your login information or password with any other user;

g) contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted;

h) "stalk" or otherwise harass anyone; and

i) collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful
purposes.

The Web site is operated from offices within the United States of America in the state of New York. Regardless of the location from which you access this Web site, you agree to comply with all applicable U.S. and other applicable laws in connection with your use of the Web site, its content, and services.

Disclaimers
The Web site is not intended for health care consumers to be used as an aid in making decisions on where they receive their health care. Nor is it intended to be used by caregivers for advising consumers on where they should receive health care. It is designed as a research and learning tool for health care providers, administrators, and researchers to help improve the performance of health care organizations.

By agreeing to the terms of use for WhyNotTheBest.org, you acknowledge that the material on the site is for informational use only, and is not intended to be relied upon for  medical diagnoses, treatment or advice on selecting  providers. Further, you explicitly acknowledge that The Commonwealth Fund is not an accreditor or evaluator of health care organizations or systems, and that a reference to an institution on the Web site is not an endorsement by the Fund for the receipt of health care from the institution. You agree that The Commonwealth Fund's name and/or logo will not be used by health care organizations or other entities as an endorsement of performance or in any advertisement or marketing of health care services.

The information is not intended in any way to be a substitute for professional medical advice, nor relied upon for medical diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

As a condition to further access to and use of this Web site, the user hereby agrees that: i) the Fund is not providing medical, legal, or ethical advice to users or arranging for the provision of medical, legal, or ethical services to users; ii) the information displayed at this Web site may not be relied upon for any purpose or reason, including, without limitation, in connection with the delivery of medical care to individuals, and iii) in no event shall the Fund be liable for any claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses arising out of or relating to the information displayed at this Web site or any use thereof, whether in contract or in tort, including, without limitation, any general, direct or indirect, special, consequential or incidental damages, regardless of having been apprised of the possibility thereof.

Web Site Content
We include a lot of information on WhyNotTheBest.org, including performance data, case studies, improvement tools, and the names and e-mail addresses of users who have agreed to participate in networking activities. We follow a standard set of editorial procedures in creating and/or vetting the information we include on the Web site. Nonetheless, the Web site content may contain technical or other inaccuracies or typographical errors, and may be changed or updated without notice.

Some of the performance data are drawn from publicly accessible data reported by U.S. hospitals to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and posted on the federal Web site, Hospital Compare (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov). While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services audits the data, the Fund does not guarantee that they are complete, up to date, or accurate. The performance data have not been verified by the Fund, and you are solely responsible for any and all decisions or actions with respect to your medical treatment.

We employed widely used methodology to develop composite measures of providers' performance with respect to care for particular conditions as well as composite measures across conditions. For further information on the methodology, see the Methodology section of this Web site.

The hospital infection ratings scores are provided by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports® magazine.  Consumers Union is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission since 1936 has been to provide consumers with unbiased information on goods and services and to create a fair marketplace.  The Commonwealth Fund is providing access to these hospital ratings scores under a non-exclusive, royalty-free arrangement with Consumers Union.  These hospital ratings scores are based on data collected from those states that make hospital infection data publicly available and limited to data collected by the states within the identified time frame.  This information is intended to enhance communication with doctors or other health professional, not replace it.  Consumers Union’s information is for individual, non-commercial use and may not be altered or modified in any way or used in advertising, promotion or for any other commercial purpose.  This information is provided AS-IS without any express or implied warranties of any kind.  Under no circumstances shall Consumers Union be liable for any loss, injury, or other damages of any kind related to your use of this information. 

Consumers Union’s information is for individual, non-commercial use and may not be altered or modified in any way or used in advertising, promotion or for any other commercial purpose.  This information is provided AS-IS without any express or implied warranties of any kind.  Under no circumstances shall Consumers Union be liable for any loss, injury, or other damages of any kind related to your use of this information. 

The Leapfrog Group does not warrant or endorse the accuracy, reliability, completeness, currentness or timeliness of any data in this display and does not warrant or endorse the methodology used in this display to compile data from different sources.  The Leapfrog Group shall not be held liable for any and all losses or damages of any or all kinds caused by reliance on the accuracy, reliability, completeness, currentness or timeliness of such information.  Any person or entity is solely responsible for determining whether the data provided on this display is suitable for their purposes.  Any person or entity that relies on any data obtained from this display does so at their own risk.  The data is provided as is, as available and with all faults, and The Leapfrog Group disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied, including any warranty of title, noninfringement, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability or arising out of any course of conduct.  The Leapfrog Group does not control or guarantee the accuracy, reliance, timeliness of completeness of information contained on a linked display.

The Web site does not include any paid or unpaid advertising of any kind.

Although we are selective about the organizations we include as resources and link to from this Web site, we do not assume any responsibility for the content or functionality of any other organizations' sites, or any sites that you browse after following a link from our Web site. You acknowledge and agree that the Fund shall not incur any liability based on any problems you encounter with such a linked site or the unavailability of such a site or the loss of any content that you or any other party may have uploaded to such a site or used in connection with it.

Information That You Put on Our Web site
When you place materials or information ("Postings") on our Web site, you give us an irrevocable, perpetual license to use the Postings in connection with the Web site in our sole discretion. For example, we have the right to display a comment that you post on one of our discussion boards for as long as we deem useful. We will consider requests to remove Postings that you make publicly available on our Web site on an individual basis (please contact us at the e-mail address we give at the end of this document).

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable laws, the Fund excludes all responsibility and liability for the Postings or for any losses or expenses resulting from their use and/or appearance on the Web site. The Fund reserves the right to monitor all Postings and to remove any which it considers in its absolute discretion to be offensive or otherwise in breach of this User Agreement or in violation of general community standards and notions of decency. You hereby represent and warrant that you have all necessary rights in and to all Postings you provide and all material, content and information they contain and that such Postings shall not infringe any proprietary right, intellectual property right or other rights of third parties.

Limitation of Liability
You expressly acknowledge and agree that the Web site, services, and content are provided strictly on an "as is" and on an "as available" basis without express or implied statutory or other warranties of any kind. The Fund makes no representations or warranties with regard to the accuracy of any content on this Web site. The Fund makes no representations or warranties regarding the content of Web sites to which this Web site may be linked or which may link to this Web site.

To the maximum extent under the law, neither the fund, its contracted vendors, nor their respective subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, shall under any circumstances incur any liability or be liable for any damages or losses whatsoever, including, without limitation: direct, incidental, special, indirect, consequential damages, or lost profits arising out of any breach of obligations or any other claim, including, but not limited to, negligence or contract, inaccuracies, incompleteness, damages relating to loss of use, loss of data, loss caused by a virus, worm, trojan horse program or disabling code (regardless of their source), loss of income or profit, loss of or damage to property, claims of third parties, or other losses of any kind or character, even if such parties have been advised of the possibility of such damages or losses. You assume the risk in using the site and the software as well as total responsibility for establishing such procedures for data back up and virus checking as you consider necessary.

Copyright

Trademarks
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. If your activities are noncommercial, you may make use of our trademarks to link to the Web site or discuss our Web site with others, as long as you make it clear that we are the owner of the trademark, and do not make any use of our trademarks that may disparage or otherwise harm our reputation or goodwill. We reserve the right to terminate any such use in our sole discretion at any time for good reason or no reason. Any other uses of our trademarks require our prior written approval.

You may not use the Fund's trademarks in any of the following ways:

• within or as part of your own trademarks;
• to identify products or services not owned or offered by the Fund;
• in a manner which will likely cause confusion;
• in a manner that implies that the Fund sponsors, endorses, or is otherwise connected with your own activities, products, or services; or
• in a manner that disparages the Fund.

Indemnity
To the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, you agree to defend, indemnify, hold harmless, release, waive, and discharge the Fund, including its officers, agents, affiliates, employees, licensors, contracted vendors and service providers, from any and all suits, claims, proceedings, losses, liability, damages and expenses, including attorneys' fees, whether in tort, contract or otherwise, which arise out of or relate to your use of the content, services, or Web site or your breach of any term in this User Agreement.

Linking to this Web site
If you maintain your own Web site, you may link to this Web site, provided that you adhere to the following rules:

• The link must be clearly marked "www.WhyNotTheBest.org" or you may use an approved graphical banner available on the Web site.
• You may link to pages within www.WhyNotTheBest.org (i.e., deep links), as long as the Web site itself is clearly and appropriately identified.
• The appearance, position, and other aspects of the link may not be such as to damage or dilute the good will associated with the Fund's reputation and trademarks.
• The appearance, position, and other aspects of the link may not create the false impression that an entity is associated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Fund.
• The link, when activated by a user, must display the Web site full screen and not within a "frame" on the linking Web site, and linking may not trigger any interstitial or pop-up or pop-under windows.
• The link may not be used in connection with or appear on a Web site that a reasonable person might consider offensive, obscene, defamatory, or otherwise malicious.
• The Fund reserves the right to revoke consent to the link at any time in its sole discretion. If the Fund revokes such consent, you agree to immediately remove and disable any and all of your links to the Web site.

Acceptance Procedure
By accessing materials on our Web site or registering on the Web site you agree with all the terms and conditions of this User Agreement.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion and without notice, to change the terms and conditions of this User Agreement from time to time, and your continuing use of our Web site constitutes your acceptance of and agreement to any changed terms and conditions. If you do not agree to the terms stated above, please refrain from using this Web site.

Severability
If any of the provisions of this User Agreement are determined to be invalid by a court or government agency of competent jurisdiction, it is agreed that such determination shall not affect the enforceability of the remaining provisions herein.

Choice of Law and Forum
This User Agreement is entered into in the State of New York, County of New York and shall be governed by, and construed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of New York without regard to principles of conflicts of law. You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts (State and Federal) located in the State of New York, County of New York in connection with any controversy arising under this User Agreement or its subject matter. You hereby waive any objection they may have in any such action based on lack of personal jurisdiction, improper venue or inconvenient forum.

Entire Agreement
This User Agreement constitutes the complete understanding between you and the Fund with respect to the Web site and no representation, statement, inducement oral or written, not contained herein shall bind either you or the Fund. This User Agreement supersedes any and all prior agreements, promises, or inducements, whether orally or in writing regarding the subject matter of this User Agreement. Further, you and the Fund agree that no promises or agreements made subsequent to the execution of this User Agreement shall be binding unless reduced to writing and executed by you and the Fund.

Questions or Concerns about Our Terms of Use
For questions or concerns about these terms of use, please send an e-mail to wntb@cmwf.org.