HealthUnlocked FAQs

1. What is HealthUnlocked?
2. What are HealthUnlocked communities?
3. How does HealthUnlocked finance its work?
4. What do we promise to our users?
5. What do we offer to charities?
6. How do we protect users' data?

What is HealthUnlocked?

HealthUnlocked is a private company that transforms patient experiences into clear understanding. We do this by enabling people to share online their health experiences and information that helps decision-making, improves health and well-being, and provides support.

The company was founded by Matt Jameson-Evans, an NHS doctor and campaigner, and Jorge Armanet an entrepreneur and innovator in the use of social media technology.

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What are HealthUnlocked communities?

HealthUnlocked communities are safe, lively and supportive online spaces designed for patients, their families and carers to share information on their health experiences.

We develop the communities for charities and patient groups and they manage them. The patient groups trust us to use our proprietary, web-based technology to build these genuinely helpful communities on their behalf.

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How does HealthUnlocked finance its work

HealthUnlocked communities are free to the user, free to the charities.

To keep the communities free HealthUnlocked has paid-for contracts with research and academic institutions, and the public and private sector ("healthcare partners"). The contract gives them access to anonymised information gathered from the patient communities where users have consented to this.

This paid-for service lets us maintain and support the communities and also to find new ways to improve how they work. Our healthcare partners cannot provide any content direct to the communities.

We also run special projects for healthcare partners to help increase knowledge and to share experiences and health information. See an example here.

HealthUnlocked always puts users' needs first.

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What do we promise to our users?

If users say we can't share certain information about them then we won't. Specifically this means:

• Users can choose, at any time, whether or not their healthcare experiences are shared with healthcare partners to improve insight and understanding.
• We will be upfront about who our healthcare partners are. Learn more about our healthcare partners.
• We won't share users' personal details, such as email addresses, with anybody else unless we have express permission to do so.
• We will protect personal details using regulated data protection tools and practices.
• We'll keep the communities free from commercial intrusion by making sure people don't use blogs or questions to advertise their products.

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What do we offer to charities?

A free, online community, branded with a charity's colours and logo. HealthUnlocked takes care of the set up, maintenance and support leaving charities to focus on helping their communities create useful content and to gain insight from the experiences shared online.

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How do we protect users' data?

Confidentiality

The users' details are always safe and robustly protected. We have secure connections (HTTPS) with 128bit encryption certificates across all the areas where personal details are used and stored.

Valuing your data protection

All passwords assigned during the sign up process are encrypted before storing, and cannot be decrypted. This gives an additional layer of security and ensures the integrity of the database.

Our server is hosted in a protected environment with secure backups performed regularly. Additionally, a managed Cisco ASA firewall provides round-the-clock security and protection from hacking. We update our security system regularly and perform ongoing research on new practices and technologies that can improve our services.

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