General Terms and Conditions for the Use of the APST Portal for international Medical Partners

Issued on January 1, 2018

APST GmbH – Terms and Conditions for Medical Partners (Version 1.1

For reasons of better readability, the simultaneous use of masculine and feminine language forms is avoided. All references to persons apply equally to both genders.

Ambulanzpartner Soziotechnologie APST GmbH (hereinafter “APST”) offers research and care management services that improve research, coordination, communication, and networking between patients (and their relatives), medical partners (doctors, researchers, nursing services), drug therapy providers (pharmacies, manufacturers of drugs and medical devices), and providers of therapeutic and medical aids. The internet platform “APST care portal” (hereinafter “APCP”) is the communication and management platform on which research and care coordination is digitally supported. It links an electronic care file and the mobile applications ALS app and SMA app with digital process control for the purposes of medical research and care management.

APST works together with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin to provide the APCP internet portal and related services. APST and Charité cooperate in hosting the APCP, including data protection and data security, as well as for the purposes of medical research.

1. Scope

1.1. These General Terms and Conditions (GTC) apply to the use of APST services and the use of the APCP internet platform by international Medical partners (hereinafter also referred to as “users”).

1.2. International Medical partners of APST are persons outside of Germany who take part in medical research and/or support patients in determining or fulfilling their research and/or care needs. The group of international medical partners includes doctors, researchers, social service employees, or other persons who have been authorized by the patient to support medical research and their own care. Medical partners are authorized as users of the platform and receive individual user accounts. The legal basis for this is provided by the individual agreements made at the time of conclusion of the contract and these General Terms and Conditions. The use of the APCP software product by patients and care providers is also provided for and is regulated in separate General Terms and Conditions for patients and care partners.

1.3. By registering with APST, the Medical partner agrees to the terms and conditions and the privacy policy. APST reserves the right to change these terms and conditions if necessary, in particular for factual and/or legal reasons, with reference to these reasons. The amended terms and conditions will be sent to the medical partner by email one month before they come into effect to the email address last provided to APST and stored on the APCP. If the user has not objected within 14 days of receiving the email, the amended terms and conditions are deemed to have been accepted and govern the future contractual relationship between the user and APST. If the user objects, the contract shall end in accordance with the provisions of Section 4.2.

1.4. The user may not transfer the rights and obligations arising from this contract. Any assignment of rights is excluded.

2. Subject matter of the contract and services

2.1. APST provides services for medical research, coordination of care, data and document management, and the networking of patients, medical partners, and care providers. A detailed description of the services, including the terms of use, can be found in the service description.

2.2. APST provides Medical partners with the APCP internet platform for optional use. APCP is a structured database with an associated internet portal that enables the electronic recording, storage, and processing of patient and care-related data, as well as digital support for care processes. Access to the portal (www.ambulanzpartner.de and www.als-center-apst.com) is granted with a personal username and password combination. The features of the digital platform, the data collected, the user roles and authorizations, and the terms of use can be found in the service description.

2.3. APST supports medical partners in using the APCP. Before using the portal, APST offers telephone instruction and, if necessary, further training, which is arranged individually.

2.4. With the patient’s written consent, the medical partner is given access to the patient’s data for viewing, processing, and use. The patient is free to revoke their initial consent at any time with immediate effect without giving reasons.

2.5. The internet connection and web browser are not subject to the contractual relationship between the medical partner and APST.

3. Conclusion of contract

3.1. The use of the services mentioned in 2.1 and the APCP software requires the conclusion of a user agreement. This contractual relationship is established when the medical partner completes the registration process.

3.2. By concluding the contract, the medical partner declares their agreement with these General Terms and Conditions, the privacy policy (Section 8.3), and the service description.

3.3. The Medical Partner warrants that the information provided by them in the context of concluding the contract is complete and correct. In the event of a breach, APST is entitled to block the customer’s user account immediately.

4. Term and termination of the contract

4.1. The contractual relationship is concluded for an indefinite period.

4.2. Both parties may terminate the contract at any time with four weeks’ notice to the end of a month. Notice of termination must be given in writing or in text form.

4.3. Both parties to the contract are entitled to extraordinary termination for good cause, in particular in the event of a material breach of contract in which the continuation of the contract becomes unreasonable for one of the contracting parties.

5. Patient obligations and security recommendations

5.1. The Medical Partner is obliged to keep their access data (user name, password) safe and secure from unauthorized access by third parties. The user is expressly recommended to use antivirus, antispyware, and firewall software as well as current browser versions. If the user uses outdated browser versions, the correct display of the APCP software may be restricted. In this case, the user can obtain information about suitable browsers and their versions from APST.

5.2. The Medical Partner undertakes not to post any illegal content on the APCP or make it accessible to third parties, for example through forums, chat rooms, email, or spam. Violations of the contractual restrictions on use entitle APST to take appropriate remedial measures, including blocking the user account. In this case, the user will be informed immediately of the type, duration, reason, and scope of the block.

5.3. The accuracy of the data and information provided by the Medical Partner influences the value of APST’s contractual services. The Medical Partner therefore expressly indemnifies APST against any claims for compensation by third parties who have relied on the completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of the data and information.

6. Costs of using APST services and software

6.1. The use of the services described in the service description for medical partners and the use of the APCP software is free of charge for medical partners.

6.2. The use of the services described in the service description for patients and the use of the APVP software is free of charge for patients and persons authorized by them.

7. Data security, consent to data processing, protection of patient data

7.1. APST is subject to the legal provisions of the Federal Republic of Germany on data protection and data security. Based on these provisions, APST is obliged to protect all patient and care-related data.

7.2. APST takes all organizational and technical precautions required by current standards to meet data protection requirements, in particular to protect patient data against unauthorized access by third parties. The transfer of stored data via the World Wide Web (www) from the server to the patient’s computer and vice versa is carried out using the SSL encryption standard.

7.3. The Medical Partner expressly declares its consent to the collection, processing, and use of its data by APST, patients, Medical Partners, and Care Partners within the scope of the contractually agreed purposes and in accordance with a separate data protection declaration.

7.4. The Medical Partner undertakes to use the patient data only for the contractually agreed purposes and to keep the data strictly confidential. A breach of these obligations constitutes grounds for extraordinary termination by APST (Section 4.3). Further rights of APST remain unaffected.

8. Liability

8.1. APST shall be liable without limitation for all damages caused by APST and its legal representatives and/or vicarious agents in cases of intent or gross negligence.

8.2. In cases of slight negligence, APST shall be liable without limitation for any injury to life, limb, or health caused by APST, its legal representatives, and/or vicarious agents.

8.3. Liability under the Product Liability Act remains unaffected.

8.4. Otherwise, APST shall only be liable if a quality guarantee has been given or an essential contractual obligation (cardinal obligation) has been breached. The term “cardinal obligation” refers abstractly to those obligations whose fulfillment is essential for the proper execution of the contract and on whose compliance the user may regularly rely. In such cases, liability is limited to compensation for foreseeable, typically occurring damage.

9. Rights of use

9.1. APST grants the Medical Partner a simple (non-sublicensable and non-transferable) right of use for the APCP software for the duration of the contract for the use of the APVP internet portal and the associated data.

9.2. The Medical Partner is only entitled to use the APCP Internet portal in accordance with the contractual provisions. The software will not be transferred to the Medical Partner.

9.3. The Medical Partner is not entitled to make the contractual service available to third parties for use. The user is therefore expressly prohibited from subletting the contractual APCP Internet portal.

10. Ratings

10.1. APST provides patients and persons authorized by patients with evaluation software for evaluating Medical Partners on the APCP. The results of the evaluations are published in aggregated form and without naming the patients on the home page or subpages of the APCP. The Medical Partner hereby agrees to the following provisions.

10.2. APST ensures that patients can only rate medical partners if they have actually received care from the medical partner. Each patient can rate a medical partner a maximum of once per care provision.

10.3. The reviews must be objective and may not contain any content that infringes the law. APST is not liable for the accuracy, quality, or completeness of the reviews. APST will remove inappropriate or illegal reviews if there are justified indications of this.

11. Severability clause

Should any provision of the contract be or become invalid or void, this shall not affect the validity of all other provisions. The invalid or void provision shall be replaced by a valid provision that comes as close as legally possible to the purpose pursued by the invalid or void provision. This also applies to any loopholes in the contract.

12. Miscellaneous

12.1. Unless otherwise specified in these General Terms and Conditions, all amendments or additions to the contract must be made in writing. This also applies to any waiver of the written form requirement.

12.2. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies. If the patient is a merchant, a legal entity under public law, or a special fund under public law, the registered office of APST shall be the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from the contractual relationship.