Privacy Policy

Northstar Healthcare Internet Privacy Statement

Safeguarding your privacy is important to us. Northstar Healthcare, Inc., has produced this online privacy statement to disclose what information is collected when a person visits our website. It also discloses why we collect information and what we do with it. This statement applies only to information collected through the website.

Types of Information Collected by Our Website

When you browse our website, www.northstar-healthcare.com, we do not collect personally identifiable information (PII) such as your name, physical address, telephone number or e-mail address. However, we may track how our website is used by collecting and temporarily storing information including:

  • The domain name from which you access our site
  • Your IP address
  • Information about your operating system and browser
  • Time and date of your visit
  • Pages that you visited
  • URL of the website that connected you to www.northstar-healthcare.com

When you become a registered user on our site, subscribe to Northstar Healthcare publications, purchase Northstar Healthcare products, apply for Northstar Healthcare membership, participate in online surveys, request information or materials, and submit questions or comments to our site, Northstar Healthcare may collect PII including:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Telephone number
  • Date of birth
  • Billing and delivery information
  • E-mail address
  • Credit card information
  • Demographic information

At no time does Northstar Healthcare collect Social Security numbers. Each online form is formatted to clearly show which pieces of PII we are collecting.

Why We Collect Information

Northstar Healthcare collects information from website visitors to better understand how visitors utilize our website. Collected data helps us to analyze which information is most helpful to visitors so that we can constantly make our website more informative and user-friendly. Also, collected data allows us to personalize the user experience and to offer targeted benefits and features based on user browsing habits.

In addition, storing information enables registered users to browse restricted areas of the site without re-registering. It also allows users to access the site without submitting a user ID or password. Finally, collecting information contributes to our website security.

How We Collect Data

Northstar Healthcare collects data through the use of cookies and transparent electronic images including clear GIFs, Web beacons, Web bugs and spotlight images. We also collect some information through banner advertisements on our website. At no time does Northstar Healthcare knowingly solicit data from or market online to children under the age of 13.

Cookies

Northstar Healthcare utilizes three types of cookies including short-lived cookies, persistent cookies and long-lasting cookies. Cookies are required both for e-commerce and members-only portions of our website.

  • Short-lived cookies. Our website may require users to accept short-lived cookies to enable the website to function properly. Short-lived cookies include session cookies, which are created by a website when that website is accessed. Session cookies are automatically deleted when you close down your browser.
  • Persistent cookies. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer’s hard drive for a time period determined by the website. These cookies may be deleted manually from your hard drive.
  • Long-lasting cookies. Long-lasting cookies may be used to track visitor practices, to learn which site services and features are most valued and to guide the site’s editorial direction. Visitors can opt out of long-lasting cookies either by disabling long-lasting cookie functions in their Web browsers or by indicating when asked that they do not wish to accept long-lasting cookies.

Transparent Electronic Images

Transparent electronic images track the number of visitors that are directed to www.northstar-healthcare.com through exterior online advertisements or through e-mail links. Spotlight tags collect information including the dollar amount of online purchase from Northstar Healthcare so that we can analyze the ways that visitors use our site. Electronic images are not used to collect PII.

Banner Advertisements

While online advertisements featured on www.northstar-healthcare.com do not collect PII, they do collect information that may include the time of day in which a visitor utilized the website and what type of browser a visitor used to view the site. These data points may be shared with advertisers so that they can determine the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

How We Use Your E-Mail Address

Our e-mail use policy covers physicians, medical students, members and non-physicians that provide their e-mail addresses to Northstar Healthcare via www.northstar-healthcare.com.

Northstar Healthcare may send transaction-related or relational e-mails to physicians, medical students, members and non-physicians with whom we have an established relationship. At no time does Northstar Healthcare share, rent, sell, exchange or trade your e-mail address to third-party vendors to allow them to market services to you.

On occasion, we may hire vendors to send e-mails to you on our behalf. These vendors are under agreement not to utilize your e-mail for any purpose other than sending communications on behalf of Northstar Healthcare.

Your e-mail address may provide us with information about your ability to view graphic-rich HTML e-mail. We may choose to send graphic-rich HTML e-mail messages to your address if we discover that you are able to receive and view them. While these messages may contain transparent electronic images designed to measure the effectiveness of our offers, we do not utilize these images to collect PII.

To opt out of receiving e-mail messages from Northstar Healthcare at any time, click the “unsubscribe” link provided at the bottom of all e-mail correspondence from Northstar Healthcare.

How We Utilize Other User Information That We Collect

Northstar Healthcare may utilize collected information aside from your e-mail address in the following ways:

  • To register you for programs and services upon your request
  • To process, fill and follow-up on both applications and orders
  • To respond to your e-mails or online requests
  • To provide information that you request
  • To send and process surveys
  • To update www.northstar-healthcare.com so that it is relevant to visitor needs
  • To deliver newsletters and correspondence related to events and meetings
  • To notify you regarding new products and services, offers, upgrades and related information from either Northstar Healthcare or our trusted partners

With Whom We Share Your Information

Northstar Healthcare discloses some information to its business partners and service providers. We also disclose information where required by law or to protect and defend the rights, property and physical safety of Northstar Healthcare and its employees.

  • Business partners. We occasionally share personal information with our business partners so that they can provide you with information about relevant products and services.
  • Service providers. When we obtain services including but not limited to printing, packaging, mailing (both orders and postal mail), delivering purchases, answering product and service-related customer questions, processing event registration or analyzing data, we only provide essential information that these companies need to deliver their services to us. These providers are prohibited from using information for any other purpose.
  • Other parties. Northstar Healthcare may release information either when required to do so by law or in good-faith belief that we are complying with legal requirements or legal processes served on Northstar Healthcare. We may also provide information in good-faith belief that such disclosure is needed to defend our rights or property, to protect our employees or to protect the public in urgent circumstances.

How We Safeguard Information

Northstar Healthcare implements a variety of security provisions both to prevent unauthorized data access and to prevent unauthorized disclosure, destruction or alteration of data. Information access is restricted to our partners and services providers to the extent that they need that information to deliver services. Any third parties to whom we release information are bound by confidentiality agreements. Third parties that fail to abide by these agreements may face discipline including separation and criminal prosecution.

Also, Northstar Healthcare utilizes site security features including user ID and passwords as security tools. These tools enable us to prevent unauthorized access to your account information. We encourage you to utilize the “Log Out” navigation button to end your secure sessions on www.northstar-healthcare.com. When you logout of the site, no further secure transactions can be conducted without re-entering your user ID and password.

Unfortunately, because no online data transmission is 100-percent safe, we cannot guarantee or warrant either the security of information transmitted to us or the security of information from our online products and services. We also remind you that many Web browsers cache pages when you view them by saving them in your computer’s temporary Internet files. When you press your browser’s “Back” button, you may be directed to a cached version of one of our secure Web pages. Caching does not affect the security of your confidential user ID or password.

Northstar Healthcare’s website may link to outside sites. However, these links do not constitute an endorsement of the information on these sites or of the parties that they represent. When you visit a linked site, you become subject to that site’s privacy policy. Northstar Healthcare is not responsible for the contents of any offsite Web page, and we encourage you to review the privacy policy or statement of any linked website that you visit.

Updates to Our Privacy Statement

Northstar Healthcare reserves the right to update our Internet Privacy Statement at any time. You may or may not receive communication about these updates. However, you may refer to the “Last Updated” entry at the bottom of our privacy statement at any time to find out when the most recent changes to our policy were made.

Last updated: August 2013