Virtual Hospitals Africa Privacy Policy
Effective Date:
22 December 2024
1. Introduction
Welcome to Virtual Hospitals Africa. We are committed to protecting your
personal information and your right to privacy. This Privacy Policy
explains what information we collect, how we use and share it, and your
rights regarding your personal data. By using our services, you agree to
the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.
Our practices align with local regulatory standards to ensure the safe
and ethical use of telemedicine.
2. Our Services
Virtual Hospitals Africa provides a comprehensive telemedicine platform
designed to support healthcare professionals and patients through
various tools and features:
-
Health Worker Application:
Enables credentialed health workers to access patient data,
conduct virtual consultations, and prescribe medications
efficiently.
-
Regulator Application:
Offers authorized regulators the ability to oversee pharmacists,
manage medication recalls, and ensure compliance with healthcare
standards.
-
Pharmacist Chatbot:
Allows credentialed pharmacists to access patient prescriptions,
communicate directly with health workers, and streamline the
prescription fulfillment process.
3. Information We Collect
We collect information about two distinct groups: patients (who do not
use the application directly) and health workers, regulators, and
pharmacists (who use the application).
-
Patient Information:
We collect personal health information about patients from the
health workers, regulators, and pharmacists using our platform. This
includes the patient’s name, contact details, age, gender,
medical history, and other relevant health information necessary for
providing healthcare services. We only collect this personal
information where we have confirmed that these third parties have the
patient’s consent or are otherwise legally permitted or required
to disclose this information to us.
-
Health Worker, Regulator, and Pharmacist Information:
For users of the application, we collect personal information
such as names, professional credentials, contact information, and
usage data. This includes information about how our service is
accessed and used, including device information, IP address, browser
type, and browsing data.
4. How We Use Your Information
We use the collected information for various purposes:
-
To ensure users have the necessary credentials to provide medical
services
: we
-
To provide and maintain our services:
Including information necessary to register an account with, and
log onto, our platform and facilitating telehealth consultations,
prescription services, and other medical support.
-
To improve our services:
By analyzing usage data to enhance user experience and service
delivery.
-
To communicate with you:
Informing you of updates, changes to our service, any pertinent
health notifications and support requests you submit to the
platform.
-
To comply with legal obligations:
Ensuring that all actions are in line with legal and regulatory
requirements, promoting the ethical and secure handling of personal
health information.
5. Sharing Your Information
We may disclose personal information to third parties for a variety of
business or commercial purposes. This includes disclosure:
-
to any
affiliated group company
for our operational business purposes;
-
to our
third-party services providers
who provide data processing for our operational business purposes.
For example, we may disclose this personal information to
support the delivery of, provide functionality on, or help to enhance
the security of our platform or services), or for other operational
and commercial purposes that are described in this Privacy Policy or
notified to you when we collect your personal information;
-
to our
partners
with whom we share data for the Virtual Hospitals Africa
platform. We may disclose this information for our operational
business purposes or for the commercial purpose to provide services to
our customers.
-
to our
customers
, for the commercial purpose of providing our services;
-
to any
competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or
other third party
where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of
applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend
our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of
any other person;
-
to an actual or
potential buyer
(and its agents and advisers) in connection with any actual or
proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business,
provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal
information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy
Policy;
-
to any
other person with your consent
to the disclosure; and
-
as otherwise allowed by applicable data protection law.
Provided, however, we only share specific patient information with health
professionals with the explicit consent of the patient for that
information to be shared with other credentialed health care
professionals. We do not share, transfer, or disclose Google user data
with any third parties.
6. Access and Security
Access to our platform is by invitation only and restricted to
credentialed health workers, regulators, and pharmacists. We are
committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We implement
various security measures to protect your personal information from
unauthorized access or disclosure, ensuring the confidentiality and
integrity of your data. Please note, though, that no internet
transmission is completely secure, so while we strive to protect your
data, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss
or a data breach will never occur.
7. Data Protection Mechanisms
We implement industry-standard data protection mechanisms to safeguard
sensitive data, including encryption, secure socket layer (SSL)
protocols, and access controls.
8. Data Retention and Deletion
Virtual Hospitals Africa will retain your information as long as we have
a legitimate interest or business purpose to retain the information, or
as otherwise allowed by applicable law. Patients may request that
their data be deleted by contacting us using the details provided under
the “Contact Us” section of this Privacy Policy. We will
respond to and address such requests in accordance with applicable laws
and regulations.
9. Sale of Data
We do not sell Google user data or any other personal data to third
parties.
10. Your Rights
Virtual Hospitals Africa supports the exercise of your data protection
rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Specifically, you have the following rights regarding your
personal information:
-
Access:
You can request access to your personal data and information on
how it is used.
-
Correction:
You can request corrections to any inaccurate or incomplete
personal data.
-
Deletion:
You can request the deletion of your personal data, subject to
our legal obligations.
If you would like to exercise any of your rights or have questions about
our privacy practices, you can contact us using the details provided
under the “Contact Us” section of this Privacy Policy.
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to
exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable laws
and regulations.
11. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of
any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. You are
advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any
changes.
12. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact
us:
jonathan.tagarisa@virtualhospitalsafrica.org
.
By using our services, you acknowledge that you have read and
understood this Privacy Policy.