General Terms and Conditions

Authorization to Obtain Medical Information for Tumor Board Presentation and (Follow-Up) Treatment as well as Internal Quality Control

By submitting the signed registration form, you agree that physicians of the Gastrointestinal Tumor Network Zurich (GITZ) may obtain treatment data to the medically necessary extent for your tumor board presentation and (follow-up) treatment, as well as for internal quality control:

  • From your previous or referring physicians,
  • Transmit these to your referring or further treating physicians, and
  • Send them to the trust physicians of the respective insurer for billing control.

To this extent, you release your treating physicians from their medical confidentiality obligations. You can revoke your consent at any time for the future by notifying us via our email address. Legal transmission obligations remain unaffected.

Consent to the Sending of Emails and Text Messages

The sending of your treatment data (e.g., tumor board report, prescriptions, laboratory findings) in simple, unencrypted emails requires a declaration of consent. You are therefore given the opportunity to make such a declaration below.
Sending simple, unencrypted messages via an open communication network (e.g., emails on the internet) carries security risks concerning the confidentiality of the communication (e.g., hacker attacks on your private email account or interferences with transmission processes on the network).

By providing your email address, you agree to the correspondence and the sending of data in electronic format via simple, unencrypted email to the aforementioned email address. Furthermore, if you use other email addresses or messaging services (e.g., SMS, WhatsApp, Threema) for communication with the physicians of GITZ, you thereby consent to treatment-related communication via these services. You are aware of the security risks associated with sending such emails or using the messaging services – particularly unauthorized knowledge and exploitation by third parties – and you assume responsibility for this.
You also agree that direct email or text message contact with your physicians concerning your illness may be charged. You can revoke your consent at any time for the future by notifying us via our aforementioned email address.

Tumor Board

When you first contact GITZ or its network partners, a responsible physician will be assigned to you. If your case is discussed at a tumor board, you will be assigned a lead physician within the GITZ network. Free choice of physician is only possible to a limited extent. If you wish to have a specific lead physician, please let us know and we will try to accommodate this. The assigned physician will present your case at the next possible tumor board after thoroughly reviewing the records. In particularly complex cases, an international expert may be consulted, but there is no entitlement to the presence of specific (international) physicians. For persons who do not reside in Switzerland, an advance payment of CHF 1200 is required. This CHF 1200 includes the prior record review of the medical history, administrative preparation, presentation, and discussion at the tumor board, as well as the creation and sending of the report by email. For additional desired services or questions regarding the treatment recommendation, you will be referred to the lead physician. Additional costs may arise for follow-up treatments or consultations and will be billed directly through the network physician (not through the Gastrointestinal Tumor Network Zurich). The treatment recommendations listed in the tumor board report are to be understood as recommendations. Swiss patients will be billed according to the standard Tarmed system through their health insurance. Any liability is excluded.

Consent to Image and Video Recordings

By signing, you agree that image and video material of you may be stored in the information system of GITZ or that of the network physicians.

Consent Concerning Payment Transactions

You grant permission for part of the billing to take place at the Oncology Centre Zurich, Seestrasse 259, 8038 Zurich. The Oncology Centre is a network partner of GITZ, which partly handles the tumor board reports’ billing on behalf of GITZ. You also grant permission to forward the necessary patient data to an institution responsible for any possible debt collection as well as to the relevant state authorities. Collection agencies, the debt collection office, the justice of the peace office, and competent courts only receive data that do not allow conclusions about the specific medical treatment.
Costs in case of payment delay: Processing fee (no earlier than day 70 after the invoice date, upon handover to Inkasso Med AG) depending on the amount of the claim, maximum amount in CHF: 50 (up to 20); 70 (up to 50); 100 (up to 100); 120 (up to 150); 149 (up to 250); 195 (up to 500); 308 (up to 1,500); 448 (up to 3,000); 1,100 (up to 10,000); 1,510 (up to 20,000); 2,658 (up to 50,000); 6% of the claim (from 50,000).

Consent to Data Collection and Data Sharing

Your data may be stored, used, and shared in the following contexts:

  • As a tumor network for the treatment of oncological diseases (cancer), we are obliged to record the therapy and the number and type of diagnoses in written form for quality assurance.
  • For the purpose of your individual and interdisciplinary therapy planning, your patient records may be presented within case conferences, so-called tumor boards (possibly involving external medical experts). In the case of assessment by additional specialists, a separate billing may be made by them.
  • Your submitted data will be made available to a lead physician from the GITZ network. This physician will store your data in their practice information system.
  • Information about you and your disease and its course will be stored and evaluated in a so-called tumor documentation system (cancer registry).

The recording and evaluation serve to improve the diagnosis, therapy, and follow-up care of tumor diseases and allow us to compare with other oncological centers worldwide. It also serves to fulfill our obligations under the Cancer Registration Act (SR 818.33). You can revoke your consent at any time, i.e., make it null and void. Revoking your consent will not affect your treatment.

Declaration of Consent

By signing, I agree that my disease data may be recorded and evaluated as part of electronic data collection. I also agree that relevant disease information may be regularly requested from any follow-up treating physicians and included in the aforementioned data collection. This also includes the presentation of my medical history in interdisciplinary tumor boards and the sending of reports to other medical service providers.
If I revoke my consent, I can decide whether the data collected so far may continue to be used or (subject to legal or professional retention obligations) must be fully anonymized. I am aware that anonymization of my data is irreversible and that no further conclusions regarding my health or treatment can be drawn from the data after anonymization.

Data Protection

Your materials or other health data will be used and/or shared exclusively in encrypted (pseudonymized or coded) or anonymized form to protect your privacy. In anonymization, all identifying information is irretrievably deleted or altered so that a link to a person can only be made with disproportionate effort. Please note that anonymization or deletion of your data or materials is irreversible, and no conclusions about your health or treatments can be drawn from anonymized data.
In encryption, we replace personal data (e.g., name, date of birth, address) with a code and only provide the data users with the code. The key (the list that connects code and name) is kept strictly secure at the Oncology Centre Zurich (OZH) and the Gastrointestinal Tumor Network Zurich (GITZ). The encryption may only be lifted in defined cases, e.g., to protect your health or your rights or when required by law.
All data are part of the practice information system, which is highly protected, and access is regulated. The materials are stored in an appropriately protected biobank. Each biobank has regulations that govern storage and access.
Not all users of the data and materials work in public institutions. There are also private companies at home and abroad that need data to develop medicines, diagnostic tests, and treatment options for patients. These companies may be offered health data for purchase. OZH and GITZ may receive compensation and possibly make an economic profit.
OZH and GITZ are convinced that providing patient data to private companies, under strict compliance with data protection measures, is meaningful and important and has the potential to improve patient care in the long term. For everything related to the website and website communication, please refer to the privacy policy on www.gitz.ch, with which you agree.

Contacts

If you have any further questions about the use of material and data or if you wish to revoke your consent, please contact your treating physician or the network management. Any written revocation of your consent can be addressed to your treating physician or the following address:

Gastrointestinales Tumornetzwerk Zürich (GITIZ)
Seestrasse 259
8038 Zurich
Switzerland
+41 77 266 93 02
info@gitz.ch
www.gitz.ch