Website Privacy Policy

Dartmouth Health is committed to protecting the privacy of information we collect from visitors to our website.

This website privacy policy (this “Privacy Policy”) describes the types of information we may collect from or about you and explains how it is used, maintained, protected and disclosed, as well as the options available to you as you interact with our website. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully before using our website.

In this Privacy Policy, references to “Dartmouth Health”, “we” or “us” are references to the following subsidiaries of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, collectively: Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, Cheshire Medical Center, Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center, New London Hospital, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, Hampstead Hospital and Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire.

This Privacy Policy does not pertain or apply to:

  • Any Dartmouth Health member that is not listed in the definition of “Dartmouth Health” above. (To review the privacy policy of any other Dartmouth Health member, please visit the website of the applicable organization.)
  • Any patient portal of a Dartmouth Health member. Patient portals are instead subject to the Notice of Privacy Practices and the patient portal terms and conditions available on the applicable Dartmouth Health member’s website.
  • “Protected Health Information” as defined under the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (together with related regulations, “HIPAA”), including information you provide to a Dartmouth Health provider or facility as a patient of that provider or facility, which is instead subject to the applicable Dartmouth Health member’s Notice of Privacy Practices.

Your consent

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat it. By accessing or using our website or providing information to us, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, you should not use our website or provide information to us in any other way. If you choose to provide us with an email address, you agree that we may use your email address to communicate with you about our services and to send select messages from Dartmouth Health. Each of those email communications will include a method to unsubscribe from future email communications.

Children under the age of 13

Our website is not intended for children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13, do not use or provide any information on our website or through any of its features, or otherwise provide any information about yourself to us. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under the age of 13, please contact us.

Information we collect

We may collect several types of information from and about users of our website, including:

  • Information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with a particular individual, such as name, address, email address, telephone number, and demographic information.
  • Information about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our website and usage details, such as IP address, mobile device and online identifiers, operating system, Mac address, cookie IDs, browser activity, search history, access times, social media information, and information regarding your interaction with our website.

We collect this information:

  • Directly from you when you provide it to us.
  • Automatically as you navigate through our website. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies.

By submitting personal information to us, you grant us permission to transmit, monitor, store, and use your information in connection with the operation of our website. If you submit any personal information relating to other people, you represent to us that you have the authority to do so and permit Dartmouth Health to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Patients of Dartmouth Health can opt to create a patient portal account. The patient portal is a secure method for patients to manage the health care services they receive from a Dartmouth Health provider or facility. Features include reviewing test results, managing appointments, messaging your doctor, renewing your prescriptions and paying your bills. Before creating an account, please review the Notice of Privacy Practices and the patient portal terms and conditions available on the applicable Dartmouth Health member’s website. As noted above, this Privacy Policy does not pertain or apply to any patient portal of a Dartmouth Health member; patient portals are instead subject to the applicable patient portal terms and conditions.

Data security

Dartmouth Health is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information you share with us through our website. In accordance with this commitment, we have implemented measures designed to protect the security of your information. We use a secure firewall and a security infrastructure that protects the integrity of information submitted to us through our website. We also review the data security policies of third parties we engage with to ensure best practices and procedures are followed.

Although we work hard to protect your personal information, Dartmouth Health cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us through our website. Transmission of information to and from our website is at your own risk.

How we use this information

Dartmouth Health does not sell any information we collect through our website.

Dartmouth Health and its authorized vendors may use the personal information collected through our website for various purposes, including to:

  • Facilitate and personalize your experience with our website.
  • Tailor digital advertisements on third-party websites based on your interactions with our website.
  • Improve the content and offerings on our website.
  • Send you information and updates when you fill out a form requesting us to do so.
  • Send you information that we believe may be of interest to you, including newsletters, information related to general community health awareness, relevant research, and other items related to Dartmouth Health and its community.
  • Respond to your questions and requests and improve customer service when you fill out a form requesting an answer or support. For example, if you use our website to locate a specialist in your area, we may use the information you provide us to put you in touch with a Dartmouth Health physician.
  • Develop marketing programs.
  • Administer promotions, surveys or other website features.
  • Identify, diagnose and monitor problems related to our website operations.

We may occasionally request feedback on our website to better understand how we can improve what information we present and how we present it. Information you provide in a survey on our website may be shared with our employees or with authorized third-party service providers who are engaged to compile and analyze this survey data.

In some cases, authorized third-party service providers of Dartmouth Health may have access to your personal information to perform a specific task, such as sending you an e-newsletter that you have signed up to receive.

Who we share this information with

We may share information that we collect in certain situations. Your information may be disclosed:

  • To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business, including marketing agencies, data analytics providers and website hosts.
  • To respond to any court order, law, or legal process; to investigate or remedy potential violations of our policies; to protect the rights, property, and safety of others; or to comply with any applicable law, rule, or regulation.
  • For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.

We only allow our service providers to handle your information if we are satisfied that they take appropriate measures to protect your information.

Retention of data

We will retain your information for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law, to resolve disputes, or to enforce applicable agreements. Your information may remain in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for additional time. Nothing in this Privacy Policy requires us to keep your information for any minimum period of time.

Cookies, tracking and internet-based activity

Our website uses “cookies,” which are small text files that include a unique identifier that is sent by a web server to the browser on your computer, mobile phone, or any other internet-enabled device when you visit an online site. We primarily use cookies that are considered technically necessary to provide our website and its core functionality to you. We also use several tools to measure technical performance, understand aggregate user behavior, and improve the design of our website.

Some of our website pages and our emails may contain electronic files known as web beacons (also known as clear gifs, tags, or pixels) that allow us to count users who have visited our pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics. We use this information to customize our services and measure the overall effectiveness of our online content and marketing efforts. We may also carry web beacons placed by third party advertisers. These beacons do not carry any information that could directly identify you.

Our web servers automatically collect the IP address of the computers that access our website. An IP address is a number assigned to your computer when you access the internet. We use this information in aggregate form to understand how our website is being used and how we can better serve our visitors.

Some internet browsers allow you to change your cookies settings through an “Options” or “Preferences” menu. Please note that certain features or functionality of our website may become unavailable if you set your preferences to block all cookies.

We work with FreshPaint and Google Analytics (and may in the future also work with other third-party service providers) to help us collect various information (using cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies) regarding users’ use of our website, including the website you are referred to our website from, the type of operating system/browser or device used, the date and time of the visit, and other information related to understanding the use of our website and optimize the user experience. When you access our website, your web browser automatically sends certain information to our service providers. By accessing our website, you consent to the collection and use of your information by them. You can learn how Google uses the information from your web browser here. You are encouraged to review Google’s Privacy Policy and contact Google directly if you have questions. If you do not want any information to be collected and used as described in this paragraph, you can download and install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on or use the Network Advertising Initiative Opt-Out Tool or Digital Advertising Alliance Opt-Out Tool.

We do not share Protected Health Information (as defined by HIPAA) with any third party except as permitted by law.

Third-party links

Our website may contain links to features or websites that are not operated by Dartmouth Health, including social networks operated by unaffiliated parties. These links are provided for convenience or informational purposes only, and Dartmouth Health does not endorse any products, services or opinions on these features or websites. Dartmouth Health is not responsible for the accuracy, legality, or content of any third party websites. We do not control these websites or their privacy practices, and any information you provide to these websites is subject to the privacy policies of those websites and not this Privacy Policy. We strongly encourage you to review the privacy policies of these third party websites.

Deletion of personally identifiable information

If you provide us with any personally identifiable information through our website, you can request that we remove it from our files by submitting this form. When completing this submission, please provide all essential information to process your request, such as your name, email address, and any information about the activity where you provided personally identifiable information. Once we receive your request, we will review your request in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws and legal obligations. We will strive to honor requests for the removal of personally identifiable information where we are reasonably able to do so. However, in some cases, it may not be legally or technically feasible for us to remove (or confirm removal of) all personally identifiable information from our files.

Visiting our website from outside the United States

Dartmouth Health is located in the United States. If you are visiting our website from outside of the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored or processed on computers or servers in the United States. By using any portion of our website, you consent to the transfer of your information to the United States and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

Transfer in the event of sale or change of control

We may share information that we collect to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, restructuring, sale or other transfer of assets, and for pre-transaction review in connection with these transactions. If the ownership of our business changes or we transfer assets relating to Dartmouth Health to a third party, we may transfer your personal information to the new owner.

Communicating with us

If you have personal information to communicate to us, please use the patient portal (if applicable) or the appropriate secure online form found on our contact page, or otherwise contact the appropriate provider by phone. Never provide personal information via email to us, as email messages, unless encrypted while in transit, can be viewed by others.

If you receive an email that looks like it is from Dartmouth Health and asks for your personal information, do not respond. Emails that do this could be a scam or “phishing” email intended to steal your information. Dartmouth Health will never request your password, user name, credit card information or other personal information through email.

When you receive an email from Dartmouth Health about your care, it will direct you to the applicable patient portal. Informational emails (such as those related to operational changes, legal changes and closures) will always be sent in a manner that facilitates encryption while in transit.

Changes to this privacy policy

Dartmouth Health may change or update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we update this Privacy Policy, we will change the “last revised” date at the bottom of the Privacy Policy and post the updated Privacy Policy on our website.

We encourage you to check back frequently for current information on how we are protecting your information. By continuing to use our website and providing information to us after a Policy update, you agree to the privacy practices described in the updated Privacy Policy.

Questions about this privacy policy

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, or concerns about how we collect, use, or protect your personal information, please contact us.

Last revised: November 28, 2025