Disclaimers

WikiHealthCare is an online collaborative environment, designed by The Joint Commission to be a collegial discussion among health care professionals and groups working to improve the quality of health care and performance improvement. The structure of the project enables registered users to alter the site content. While users may find valuable information on WikiHealthCare, the very nature of a site that relies upon user created and edited content makes it impossible to verify the accuracy of information posted on the site at any given point in time.

Warranty Restriction; Limitation Of Liability

THE JOINT COMMISSION CANNOT GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, TIMELINESS OR VALIDITY OF THE INFORMATION, GRAPHICS, LINKS OR COMMUNICATIONS PROVIDED ON OR THROUGH THE SITE AND THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS". YOU BEAR THE RISK OF USING IT. THE JOINT COMMISSION GIVES NO EXPRESS WARRANTIES, GUARANTEES OR CONDITIONS AND EXPRESSLY EXCLUDES ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. There is no warranty against interference with your enjoyment of any materials, information or services (including, but not limited to, any data, text, images, sounds or computer programs (including collections and compilations of them) or against infringement.

Neither The Joint Commission nor any of its officers, directors, employees or affiliates shall be liable for any direct, indirect, special, consequential, punitive, exemplary and/or incidental damages of any kind whatsoever (including, but not limited to, lost profits or attorneys' fees) in any way due to, resulting from or arising in connection with your access to, inability to access, or use of WikiHealthCare, or from your reliance on any information provided at WikiHealthCare, even if The Joint Commission has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation applies to all causes of action in the aggregate including, but not limited to, breach of contract, breach of warranty, negligence, strict liability, misrepresentation and any other tort. In the event the foregoing limitation of liability set forth herein shall be for any reason held unenforceable or inapplicable, you agree that The Joint Commission and its affiliates' aggregate Liability shall not exceed five dollars ($5).

Neither The Joint Commission nor its affiliates takes any responsibility or assumes any liability for any content uploaded or otherwise transmitted by you or any third party, or for any mistakes, defamation, slander, libel, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, pornography, indecency, lewdness, harassment, threats, abuse or profanity you may encounter in using WikiHealthCare. You agree to hold harmless The Joint Commission and its affiliates and parties with whom The Joint Commission has contracted for purposes of hosting or maintaining WikiHealthCare from all claims based upon communications or materials made available by you on WikiHealthCare.

General Disclaimers

WikiHealthCare is not uniformly peer reviewed. Accuracy cannot be assured, you are urged to consult an official document should reliance on content be necessary. This site should not be cited as an official or authoritative source. The content on the site has not necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. While readers may correct errors or engage in an informal peer review process, they have no legal duty to do so and thus all information read here is provided without any implied warranty of fitness for any purpose or use whatsoever. Even articles that have been vetted by informal peer review may later have been edited inappropriately, just before you view them. The content of any given article, for example, may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields. Therefore, contributors, sponsors, administrators, or anyone else connected with WikiHealthCare or The Joint Commission cannot, in any way whatsoever, be held responsible for the appearance of any inaccurate or libelous information, or for your use of the information, contained in or linked from these web pages.

No contract; limited license

The information provided on the site is being provided freely. Through the Registration and User Agreement, you are being granted a limited license to access the WikiHealthCare site and participate in the user community; it does not create or imply any contractual or extracontractual liability on the part of The Joint Commission or any of its agents, members, organizers or other users. No other kind of agreement or contract is created between you and the owners or users of this site, the owners of the servers upon which it is housed, the individual WikiHealthCare contributors, any project administrators or anyone else who is in any way connected with this project. There is no agreement or understanding between you and WikiHealthCare regarding your use or modification of this information beyond the copyright licenses that apply to various features on the site; neither is anyone at The Joint Commission responsible should someone change, edit, modify or remove any information that you may post on WikiHealthCare.

Links

There may be links included within WikiHealthCare which may lead the User to other websites. The Joint Commission assumes no responsibility for the content on those sites, nor does the inclusion of any links on this site imply any endorsement of any products or services by The Joint Commission.

Trademarks

WikiHealthCare is a registered trademark of The Joint Commission, a US-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit organization. Other trademarks, service marks, collective marks, design rights, personality rights or similar rights that are mentioned, used or cited in the articles of the WikiHealthCare are the property of their respective owners. Their use here does not imply that you may use them for any other purpose other than for the same or a similar informational use as contemplated by the original authors of these WikiHealthCare articles under the appropriate copyright licenses. Unless otherwise stated, WikiHealthCare is neither endorsed nor affiliated with any of the holders of any such rights, and as such, WikiHealthCare cannot grant any rights to use any otherwise protected materials. Your use of any such or similar incorporeal property is at your own risk.

Copyright

The Joint Commission is not responsible for any user-supplied content which might infringe on any copyright held by a third party. Individual Users are responsible for the content which is supplied. Should any User identify any content which is thought to infringe on the rights of others, notification should be provided immediately to The Joint Commission. Upon such notification The Joint Commission will immediately remove the content that is the subject of the complaint until ownership rights have been confirmed or clarified.

License

The Joint Commission does not own copyright on WikiHealthCare author text or illustrations. Thus, it is futile to contact The Joint Commission for permission to reproduce WikiHealthCare content. However, reproducing content is possible, without requiring permission, in accordance with WikiHealthCare's licensing agreement.

WikiHealthCare uses a type of free software license known as a copyleft. This license allows the content to be copied, modified, and redistributed provided that the new version allows the same freedoms and recognizes the authors of the utilized WikiHealthCare text or illustration. The author credit requirement may be satisfied by a direct link to the original article. Thus, WikiHealthCare content will remain perpetually free and can be used by anyone subject to specified restrictions as identified in the license, most of which function to guarantee freedom of use.

In order to execute the stated goals, the content of WikiHealthCare is copyrighted by WikiHealthCare contributors and licensed to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). This text should not be changed for legal reasons.

Permission is given to copy, distribute, and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)." All content on WikiHealthCare is protected by disclaimers.

The English text of the GFDL is the only legally binding document.

Jurisdiction and legality of content

Publication of information found in WikiHealthCare may be in violation of the laws of the country or jurisdiction from where you are viewing this information. The WikiHealthCare database is stored on a server in the State of Illinois in the United States of America, and is maintained in reference to the protections afforded under local and federal law. Laws in your country or jurisdiction may not protect or allow the same kinds of speech or distribution. WikiHealthCare does not encourage the violation of any laws; and cannot be responsible for any violations of such laws, should you link to this domain or use, reproduce, or republish the information contained herein.

Indemnification

Upon a request by The Joint Commission, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the Joint Commission and its affiliates, and their employees, contractors, officers and directors, from all liabilities, claims and expenses, including attorney's fees, that arise from your use or misuse of WikiHealthCare. The Joint Commission reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which event you will cooperate with The Joint Commission in asserting any available defenses.

Reservation of Rights

The Joint Commission reserves the right to modify WikiHealthCare and the materials, features and services provided on WikiHealthCare at any time for any reason without prior notice to you, the User.

Joint Commission Accreditation

Participation in WikiHealthCare is independent of the accreditation process and will not impact your organizations accreditation status or any efforts by your organization to retain such accreditation. No representation has been made by The Joint Commission relative to the effect of participation in WikiHealthCare on your organization's ability to retain accreditation. It is further understood that participation in WikiHealthCare is not intended to serve as a substitute for any responsibility of your institution in the accreditation process.