Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes the practices of the American Hospital Association, its subsidiaries and affiliates (referred to as a group as “AHA”) regarding the collection and use of information from visitors to our websites and users of our other Internet services. By visiting an AHA website, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.


Information We Collect and How We Use It

AHA collects information from several sources.  Our Web server automatically collects the domain name and Internet Protocol ("IP") address for each visitor to our websites. We collect information about the usage of our websites. In addition, we may request or require you to provide personally identifiable information and/or create an account in order to access certain services or engage in certain activities on a website. The information collected depends on how you choose to use our services and our websites, as detailed below.

a. Commonly Accepted Practices

Information collected may be used for commonly accepted practices, including:

  1. Product service fulfillment, such as the use of addresses for shipping and credit card information for payment;
  2. Sending electronic publications to online subscribers;
  3. Administration of our websites and monitoring usage of our websites;
  4. Internal operations, such as the use of identity-verification technologies, and the review of server logs;
  5. Legal compliance and public purposes, such as subpoena compliance and credit reporting; and
  6. Marketing of products and services to you by AHA, such as the recommendation of products or the delivery of coupons based upon prior purchases.
b. Information Collected to Create an Account

There are times when AHA may request or require you to create an account with us in order to obtain certain services. In such cases we may collect user name or ID and password information from you. We use this information to verify users' identities in order to prevent unauthorized access to users' personal information. AHA allows account holders to elect to have the website remember their login information between visits so they do not have to log in each time. This is done by checking a box labeled "remember me" on the login page. This feature requires the placement of a small text file called a cookie (see next section) on the user's hard drive. The cookie tells the site that the user has logged in before.

c. Cookies

Several portions of the AHA websites use cookies. Cookies are small data files that are transferred to your computer through your Web browser. Cookies are used by most websites. We may use cookies, clear gifs, and log file information to: (i) store information so that you will not have to re-enter it during subsequent visits; (ii) provide personalized content; (iii) monitor effectiveness of marketing campaigns; (iv) record site analytics such as total number of visitors, pages viewed, etc.; and (v) track your entries, submissions and communications. Certain features of our website require cookies in order to function properly. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. Some AHA website features and services may not function properly if you set your browser to refuse cookies.

d. Email Addresses and Mailing Lists

AHA collects and uses the email addresses and mailing addresses of its members (see Section 2. Members' Information, below) for purposes of providing membership benefits and services to members. In addition, AHA collects email and mailing addresses in connection with registration for and attendance at conferences, webinars and other events, subscriptions for publications, the purchase of products and services, and in other circumstances. We may use your email address or other personally identifiable information to send commercial or marketing messages to you regarding AHA's products or services. In addition, we may also use your name, mailing address, email address, or other personally identifiable information (i) to send commercial or marketing messages on behalf of our affiliated organizations or on behalf of unrelated third parties, and/or (ii) in a mailing list sold to third parties for the marketing of their products and services. For example, we may share contact information you provide when you register for a conference or webinar with conference exhibitors or webinar sponsors so that they may send you commercial messages. You may opt-out of any or all of such disclosures as provided below.

e. Surveys

Our online surveys may ask respondents for contact, demographic and other personally identifiable information. The ways in which such information may be used or disclosed will be described in the survey materials. We also may use contact information from our surveys to send the user information about products and services of AHA, our affiliated organizations and/or unrelated third parties.

f. Information from Other Sources

The information we collect is gathered from several sources. Such sources may include, but are not limited to: membership enrollment; conference, webinar, distance learning and other event registration; website visits; newsletter and magazine subscriptions; and product sales. We may combine the information you submit when using one of our services with information (i) collected from your use of other AHA services, (ii) collected by AHA affiliated organizations, or (iii) obtained from third parties. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information.


Other Information Regarding Policy
Members' Information

The AHA and its affiliated organizations offer individuals and institutions the opportunity to become members of the AHA and its affiliates. As part of membership enrollment, we may require or ask you for personal or organizational information. We will create a member profile for you using such information and other information collected as described in this Privacy Policy. We may share the information in the member profile created with respect to membership in one AHA organization with other AHA affiliated organizations. The information you submit as part of your membership may also be used to compile a member directory or a list of persons registered to attend an event (either hardcopy or electronic). Such directories and lists may be shared with other members within a group, other registrants or third parties for marketing of their products and services. Upon termination or expiration of a membership, the information you submitted may be retained by the membership group and the AHA for an indefinite period of time for record keeping or marketing purposes.

Third Party Advertisers and Links

This Privacy Policy applies to AHA websites only. We may allow third party ad servers or ad networks to serve advertisements within AHA's websites. These third party ad servers or ad networks use technology to send, directly to your browser, the advertisements and links that appear on the website. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. They may use other technologies such as cookies, scripting language or clear gifs to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and to personalize the advertising content you see.

AHA does not provide any personally identifiable information to these third party ad servers or ad networks without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third party ad servers and ad networks for more information on their practices and for instructions on how to opt-out of certain practices.

AHA's websites and publications contain many links to other websites. In addition, AHA and its affiliates may maintain a presence on third-party sites such as Facebook® or Linked-In®. These other websites may send their own cookies to users, collect data or solicit personal information. AHA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these other websites. Please check with the other sites to review their privacy policies and how they may collect or use information.

Information Sharing

In addition to the information sharing described elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, the AHA shares personal information with AHA affiliated organizations and other trusted businesses or persons to perform functions on our behalf. These third parties have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.

In the unlikely event that AHA or one of its affiliated organizations is acquired, or substantially all of the assets of AHA or one of its affiliated organizations are acquired, by a third party either in a sale, bankruptcy court proceeding or otherwise it is possible that personal information of website users and customers would be one of the assets transferred. In such an event, AHA would take reasonable steps to require the third party to maintain our privacy policies and practices.

Information Security

Please understand that no one can give an absolute assurance that information intended to be maintained as private, whether transmitted via the Internet or otherwise, cannot be accessed inappropriately or unlawfully by third parties. It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a computer. We have taken and will continue to take reasonable steps to ensure the secure and safe transmission of your personal information.

Children's Privacy

The AHA website is not intended for children under eighteen (18) years of age. AHA does not knowingly solicit or collect personal information from or about any such children, and AHA does not knowingly market its products or services to any such children. If AHA becomes aware that it has inadvertently received personal information from a User under the age of eighteen (18), it will delete such personal information from its records.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

AHA MAY MODIFY THIS PRIVACY POLICY AT ANY TIME, AND ANY CHANGE WILL BE EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY UPON POSTING OF THE MODIFIED PRIVACY POLICY. YOU AGREE TO REVIEW THE PRIVACY POLICY PERIODICALLY TO BE AWARE OF SUCH MODIFICATIONS AND YOUR CONTINUED ACCESS OR USE OF THE SITE SHALL BE DEEMED YOUR CONCLUSIVE ACCEPTANCE OF THE PRIVACY POLICY, AS MODIFIED.

IF FOR ANY REASON AHA WOULD LIKE TO USE THE INFORMATION YOU HAVE SUBMITTED FOR SUBSTANTIALLY DIFFERENT PURPOSES OTHER THAN THOSE OUTLINED AT THE TIME YOU ORIGINALLY SUBMITTED YOUR INFORMATION, AHA WILL AFFIRMATIVELY REQUEST PERMISSION FROM YOU TO USE SUCH DATA FOR THOSE SUBSTANTIALLY DIFFERENT PURPOSES.

We will keep prior versions of the Privacy Policy in an archive for your review.

Accessing and Updating Personal Information

At your request, we will make a reasonable, good faith effort to provide you with access to your personal information, to correct data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request, if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes.

When making a request, individual users are asked to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed. We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, would be extremely impractical, or for which access is not otherwise required. Correcting or removing data is done free of charge to the user unless doing so requires a disproportionate effort. After deleting your information from active servers, copies may remain in our backup system.

Contact Information and Opt-Out Requests

We welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions about our Privacy Policy and privacy practices. If you feel that AHA is not following this Privacy Policy, please contact us as follows.

Contact Information:

By email at ip@aha.org
By phone at 312-­­­422-3000
By mail at:

American Hospital Association Legal Department - Corporate Affairs
155 N. Wacker Dr., Suite 400
Chicago, IL 60606

We also welcome users' requests not to receive certain forms of communication from AHA and third parties and not to have certain information shared with nonaffiliated third parties. If you prefer that we not disclose your personally identifiable information to nonaffiliated third parties, you may request us not to make those disclosures (except as required by law) by contacting us as described above. If you elect to opt out of certain disclosures, we may not be able to offer you certain services and products. Please note that personally identifiable information does not include publicly available information that is lawfully made available to the general public from federal, state or local government records, widely distributed media or disclosures to the general public required by law.

Email Lists and Social Media Sites

AHA may offer opportunities to its members and others to share information and participate in social networking on AHA websites or AHA may participate in social media sites maintained by others. Please consult the Social Media Policy applicable to the particular website before participating in any social networking or content sharing activity.

Terms of Use

If you choose to visit one of AHA's websites, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use, including limitations on damages, resolution of disputes and application of the law of the State of Illinois.