VCOM Administrative and Classified Staff Handbook

o Students and employees involved in patient care must maintain HIPAA regulations and maintain patient privacy and confidentiality at all costs. Students and employees must never post information about any patient or about a patient’s care, whether the patient is identified or not. o Do not display images of patients, cadavers, or body parts of patients or cadavers. o Do not display images from OMM or physical diagnosis labs unless VCOM administration has given approval for the use of such photos. • Do not give medical advice, as this may result in a violation of HIPAA and may cause danger to others. • Do not have interactions with patients on any form of social media. To do so may damage the doctor patient relationship and may have legal consequences. • Students, faculty, and staff are discouraged from “friending” one another unless they are sure that their social media communications are worthy of an academic relationship. • Do not promote or condone unprofessional or high-risk behaviors such as, excessive use of alcohol, high risk sexual behaviors, and other such behaviors that would be embarrassing or potentially harmful to the person or to VCOM. • Avoid using information or conducting activities that may violate applicable local, state, or federal laws and regulations. • Avoid engaging in behavior that could raise actual or apparent conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment on social networks. VCOM’s Policy on Conflicts of Interest and Industry Relationships (U015) sets forth the types of prohibited activity. • Do not endorse commercial partners or advertise on behalf of external vendors. Use of VCOM’s name, marks, or research examples for corporate promotion, regardless of whether the information is in the public domain, can jeopardize the integrity of our research and our non-profit tax-exempt status. This includes a prohibition on ad placement for commercial partners, partner content marketing or “advertorials,” announcement of commercial partnerships by VCOM, and participation in published case studies about VCOM’s relationship with commercial partners. • Do not share confidential or proprietary information about VCOM and/or its students, faculty, staff, and alumni. This includes, but is not limited to, financial, recruitment, student conduct and/or human resources data; internal strategies, reports, and conversations; personal contact information, as well as college news and announcements that are managed by the Division of Communications, Marketing, Website and Publications. If you are unsure whether information is confidential or not, please contact the Division of Communications, Marketing, Website and Publications or the Office of the General Counsel. • Be respectful of intellectual property rights and laws. Use of third-party copyrighted or trademarked material or use of a person’s likeness without permission in digital content may be illegal and may expose VCOM to significant financial liability and reputational risk. Administrators and editors of official social media are responsible for obtaining the necessary clearance for its use of intellectual property rights (e.g. music and photos) and a person’s likeness in connection with their communications activities. • When engaging on social media on VCOM’s behalf, do not express political opinions; support political candidates; engage in political activities; support or promote a cause; endorse people, products, services, or organizations. Your political, social, or product opinions can only be expressed in your individual capacity on your own social media accounts and, even then, avoid the appearance that you are speaking or acting for the college in these matters. • By posting content to any social media site, you agree that you own or otherwise control all the rights to that content, that your use of the content is protected fair use, or that you have permission to post the content; that you will not knowingly provide misleading or false information; and that you hold the College harmless for any claims resulting from the content. • VCOM will not be liable for and will not indemnify any student or employee for any liability that results from postings from personal social media accounts.

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