Effective / Last Updated:April 19, 2026

Our Cookie Philosophy

At the Hospital Data Center, we believe in a transparent and minimal-footprint approach to user tracking. We use cookies—small text files stored on your device—exclusively to maintain the functionality of our healthcare benchmark platform and to analyze high-level traffic patterns. We do not use invasive third-party tracking pixels or behavioral advertising cookies.

Cookie Categories We Utilize

Classification
Purpose & Implementation
Retention Period
Strictly Necessary
Enables core site features like secure network routing, load balancing, and honoring your data-privacy choices. The platform cannot function without these.
Session length to 30 days
Performance Analytics
Aggregates anonymous usage statistics (e.g., measuring traffic to state/city hospital listings or Quality Score interactions) to help us optimize UI/UX.
Up to 13 months
Functional Preferences
Remembers your applied benchmark filters (e.g., sorting by 'Infection Score' or 'Patient Experience') across paginated hospital directories.
Up to 12 months

Managing Your Preferences

You retain full control over your browser's cookie storage. You can instruct your browser to refuse all non-essential cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, disabling 'Functional Preferences' may reset your hospital sorting views upon page reload.

Privacy Assurance: We expressly do not use tracking technologies to monitor personal medical inquiries, nor do we attempt to de-anonymize IP addresses to physical identities.