Website Terms and Conditions of Use
Last updated: September 2024
Please read these Terms and Conditions carefully before using the Healthier Washington Collaboration Portal website (“WA Portal”), including user accounts referred to as the My Portal space.
WA Portal is administered by the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) as a resource for peers and partners in the health and wellness system in Washington State. The health and wellness system is defined by this site’s administrators as governmental public health partners (the Washington State Department of Health, Local Health Jurisdictions, Sovereign Tribal Nations, the State Board of Health), state and local governmental agencies, community organizations, nonprofit agencies, academic institutions, and physical or behavioral health providers, or professionals based in Washington State who are engaged in working to improve health and wellness for people in Washington State.
WA Portal is a peer-to-peer collaboration and information-sharing tool for individuals and groups working in health and wellness. The site is not intended for the general public.
WA Portal does not accept advertising or approve partner sites that promote fee-based services on WA Portal.
Any partners displaying information on WA Portal’s website must maintain current information on their webpages and commit to checking all their published webpages on a quarterly basis to ensure content is current, relevant, and useful to visitors of the site. Hyperlinks must also be checked quarterly and broken links fixed or removed. WA Portal administrators will remove pages or content that does not meet these requirements.
DOH reserves the right to deny or revoke user access to WA Portal for persons or organizations, particularly entities not representing health and wellness organizations, or who engage in any of the following activities:
- Political discussion or lobbying activities.
- Promoting fee-based services or advertising products for sale.
- Promoting health and wellness information that is potentially unsafe or aligned with DOH guidance.
- Not abiding by restrictions outlined below in Prohibited Behaviors section.
Your access to and use of the site is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these terms. These terms apply to all visitors, users, and others who access or use WA Portal. By accessing or using WA Portal you agree to be bound by these terms. Failure to comply with these terms may result in loss of access rights to WA Portal.
Retention, Disclosure, Copyright, and Accessibility
All content, including documents and messages, on WA Portal and My Portal are subject to public disclosure.
All content brought to the site has been assessed as transitory by DOH’s Records and Information Officer or Portal site administrators and will not be retained or archived by DOH. As a contributor you own the information you post. Users who discontinue participation in WA Portal should notify the portal manager and the WA Portal administrators may discard content as appropriate.
WA Portal allows participants who have received account approval to post, link, store, share, and otherwise make available, information, text, graphics, videos, or other material ("Content"). WA Portal users are responsible to ensure they follow copyright requirements that may be due the original owners of such material. Contributors to WA Portal must adhere to all copyright laws when posting content and assume all liability for ensuring copyright laws and intellectual property rights are observed.
DOH does not copyright information posted on WA Portal, but any original copyright applies. Anyone wishing to use partner content from WA Portal must gain permission from the original copyright owner.
DOH is committed to making its electronic and information technologies accessible to individuals with disabilities by complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Washington State Office of the Chief Information Office (OCIO) Policy #188. Partners who use WA Portal for posting web content and sharing documents in the My Portal teams space must comply with these regulations and respond to accessibility requests received directly or communicated to WA Portal administrators.
Liability
WA Portal and its administrators cannot be held responsible for any errors in content.
Participation by any individual or organization on the site is not necessarily an endorsement of the users or organizations and WA Portal is not responsible for statements made by third parties.
The site is not approved for sharing personal health information.
Links to other websites
WA Portal may contain links to third-party websites or services that are not owned or controlled by WA Portal.
WA Portal has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, policies, or practices of any third-party websites or services. WA Portal site visitors and account users further acknowledge and agree that WA Portal shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such websites or services.
The WA Portal administrators do not respond to requests to post links by an individual, group, organization, or commercial entity. Acceptable links are those provided by a Washington state-based organization undertaking work on a health-related activity in collaboration with an established WA Portal partner.
Permitted Site Users
Access to the My Portal space and its content requires an individual user account that must be approved by WA Portal administrator or a collaboration team manager. An eligible WA Portal user must be an individual working on a public health issue or project intended to improve the health, access, and equity of Washington State residents. Users of the My Portal area may not share their log-in credentials (email address and password) with others or invite multiple users to use one common log in to access My Portal.
The WA Portal administrators have the right to rescind access to individual users for noncompliance with any portion of this user agreement.
The WA Portal administrators will remove user accounts that are inactive for more than six months.
The Department of Health currently maintains this resource at no cost to approved WA Portal partners and users. This includes access to the current functionality of the WA Portal. Note: there may be development charges assessed for any customized component requests. These will be discussed with the requesting partner prior to development.
Contact Information
WA Portal may request that you provide certain personal information to create a user account, participate in the password-protected areas, join the WA Portal mailing lists, or for other purposes.
Unless there are restrictions on use of your information, or unless the WA Portal administrators tell you otherwise, WA Portal (or third parties engaged by WA Portal) may use your information to:
- Administer your participation in this website;
- Communicate information the WA Portal administrators think may be of interest to you;
- Fulfill your requests for services or materials;
- Contact you;
- Conduct research or surveys;
- Respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process; and
- Establish or exercise WA Portal’s legal rights or defend against legal claims.
Sharing Your Information
Through display, WA Portal may disclose your contact information to other authorized users of this website. WA Portal may use third party service providers and suppliers to facilitate this website and the services WA Portal provides, and they may have access to your contact information. Authorized users are the WA Portal administrators or third parties who have been granted access and have a need to know the information collected in order to fulfill the WA Portal’s mission. WA Portal may disclose this information to other affiliated institutions and/or if WA Portal is required to do so by law. WA Portal is administered by a state agency, and as such, WA Portal is subject to the Washington Public Records Act, RCW 42.56. As WA Portal determines it is appropriate to do so, WA Portal will disclose information requested required under this law.
See the DOH Privacy Policy for additional information regarding how the agency handles information.
Prohibited Behavior
You are responsible for your behavior in your use of this website and for respecting any third parties’ (person or entity) rights in connection with the website and its content.
You may not use this website for any purpose or in any manner that violates any local, state, or federal law or regulation.
You may not use this website to post or send any content that is infringing, threatening, defamatory, racist, libelous, obscene, or pornographic.
You may not use or exploit any portion of this website to distribute commercial messages, “spam,” or other unsolicited communications.
You may not directly or indirectly, intentionally disrupt or interfere with this website in any manner that may materially adversely affect WA Portal, the state Department of Health, other site users, or any third party.
You may not share the same email address and password to provide simultaneous access to My Portal to multiple users.
Changes
We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these terms at any time. It is your responsibility to check the terms periodically for changes.