Social Media Terms and Conditions

We welcome and encourage open discussion on Greater El Monte Community Hospital's social media sites - including but not limited to: our blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube pages and online story-sharing forums - and look forward to any comments, stories and experiences you want to share.

We make reasonable efforts to monitor participation to ensure that you stay on topic, are courteous, and avoid making offensive comments. Please remember that information posted on any of our social media platforms should not be considered medical advice and should not replace a consultation with a health care professional.

If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call your local emergency number. (In the United States, call 911.)

Please be aware that once you post something online, there is the potential for thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people to read your words. As a result, we suggest that you exercise caution when posting medical information on any of our social and digital media sites and that you do not disclose personal identifiable information such as your location, medical record number, financial information, etc.

Greater El Monte Community Hospital stands by its mission statement, which is, "to provide quality healthcare in a safe environment that is sensitive and supportive to the physical, emotional, spiritual, and diverse multicultural needs of our patients and their loved ones. We advocate the preservation of human dignity in the delivery of services and programs." This mission statement guides our social media policies. Greater El Monte Community Hospital reserves the right to delete comments that violate patient privacy, are abusive or off topic or that contain foul language, spam or advertisements for commercial products. Disagreements and feedback/criticism are welcome, but mutual respect is a must.

Our Privacy Policies

As an organization providing health care services, we are prevented by law from publicly providing any information about our patients, even if the information has already been disclosed by a patient, friends or family members online (health information privacy is covered by the federal government's Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, commonly referred to in health care as HIPAA).

When patients wish to have Greater El Monte Community Hospital publicize information about their care, we work with these patients to complete a formalized written and signed authorization to address their concerns before sharing a patient's information with the public. In all other situations, we place an absolute priority on rigorously adhering to our discipline of preserving our patients' privacy. This is a discipline that we carefully follow no matter how eager individuals may be to receive answers on social media.

Official Policy:

The opinions and/or views expressed on Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media platforms, including, but not limited to, our blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages, YouTube, and online story-sharing forums, represent the thoughts of individuals and online communities and not necessarily those of Greater El Monte Community Hospital or any of its affiliates or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, research staff, medical staff or members of their respective boards of directors. The opinions and views expressed on these pages do not in any way reflect the views of the site they are posted on, other sites affiliated with the site, the staff involved with maintaining the site or any members of the site.

Use of Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media does not create a physician-patient relationship with any Greater El Monte Community Hospital medical professional. Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media sites are made available with the understanding that the content and service providers are not engaged in rendering medical, health, psychological or any other kind of personal professional services through these sites. Users should consult with a medical, health, or other competent professional before taking any action or drawing any inferences based upon the information accessed or viewed through the sites; any action taken by a user in response to information obtained from a social media site is at the user's discretion. Nothing displayed on any Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media site should be relied upon to replace or overrule a licensed health care professional's judgment or clinical diagnosis.

Users are responsible for content submitted to social media sites. You may not submit any material or content that infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party. You agree that you will not violate any local, state, federal, and international laws and regulations, including those related to copyright and other intellectual property rights. You further agree that you will not submit any information that:

is disruptive, threatening, abusive, profane, harassing, embarrassing, defamatory, libelous, obscene, hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, as solely determined by Greater El Monte Community Hospital;

contains any product or service advertisements or endorsements;

can be construed as political lobbying.

Users may not make any commercial use of any Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media site or any content, code, data, or materials on or available through Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media sites. Users may not download, post, display, publish, copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, perform, broadcast, create derivative works, sell, or otherwise exploit any content, code, data, or materials on or available through Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media sites. Users also agree not to alter, edit, delete, remove or otherwise modify the meaning, appearance or purpose of any content, code, data or materials on or available through Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media sites, including, but not limited to, altering, obscuring or removing any trademarks, trade names, logos, or other proprietary rights notices.

While Greater El Monte Community Hospital makes reasonable efforts to monitor and/or moderate content posted on its social media platforms, we do not moderate all comments and cannot always respond in a timely manner to online requests for information.

Greater El Monte Community Hospital reserves the sole right to review, edit and/or delete any comments it deems are inappropriate. Comments including but not limited to the following may be deleted or edited by the moderator:

Abusive or hurtful comments about a blogger or another participant;
Off-topic and redundant comments (this includes promotion of events, groups, pages, Web sites, organizations and programs not related to or affiliated with Greater El Monte Community Hospital)
Comments that use foul language or "hate speech" (for example, including but not limited to, racial, ethnic, or gender bashing language);
Personal attacks or defamatory statements or comments (i.e., making negative personal or untrue comments about a participant), instead of just criticizing his/her posting, opinion or comments;
Comments that violate the privacy of our patients and their families or Greater El Monte Community Hospital staff.

Information posted on Greater El Monte Community Hospital's social media sites is not intended to be medical advice and should not be considered medical advice, nor is it intended to replace a consultation with a qualified physician or other health care provider.

All links to other Web sites found linked from Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media sites are provided as a service to readers, but such linkage does not constitute endorsement of those sites by Greater El Monte Community Hospital and as such, Greater El Monte Community Hospital is not responsible for the content of external Web sites.

By submitting content to any Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media site, participants understand and acknowledge that this information is available to the public, and that Greater El Monte Community Hospital may use this information for internal and external promotional purposes. Please note that other participants may use posted information beyond the control of Greater El Monte Community Hospital. If a participant does not wish to have the information made available via the site used, published, copied and/or reprinted, the participant should not post on the page. Greater El Monte Community Hospital may, without any liability to a participant, disclose a participant's communications and activities with Greater El Monte Community Hospital social media in response to lawful requests by governmental authorities, judicial orders, warrants or subpoenas, or for the protection of Greater El Monte Community Hospital's rights.

Questions or comments about Greater El Monte Community Hospital's Social Media Terms and Conditions? Email: GEMCH4U@ahmchealth.com.