As a patient at Saint Vincent, you have both rights and responsibilities. We provide a summary of those below, but please see further details in our Patient Rights and Responsibilities brochure.
If you do not receive a hard copy of the brochure at registration, you can request one from your nurse or by calling Patient Experience Department from your hospital phone at extension 7081.
You have the right to:
You are responsible for:
In addition to providing you with medical care of the highest quality, we at Saint Vincent are committed to making your hospital stay as comfortable as possible. If you have questions, unmet needs, problems or complaints while you’re here, please notify the staff providing your care or ask to speak to the department leader. Saint Vincent will make every effort to address your concern immediately.
If you have concerns or comments about any aspect of your stay, you can also contact our Patient Experience Department by calling (814) 452-5000 and ask to be transferred to the dept. Monday through Friday between 8:00 AM and 4:30 PM. A Patient Experience Representative will assist you.
You may also refer complaints to the Pennsylvania Department of Health or the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. You can do so regardless of whether or not the Saint Vincent complaint procedures are used:
Acute and Ambulatory Care Services
Pennsylvania Department of Health
Room 532 H&W Building
625 Forster Street
Harrisburg, PA 17120
1-800-254-5164
The Joint Commission
Office of Quality Monitoring
One Renaissance Boulevard
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181
1-800-994-6610
Fax: (630) 792-5636
complaint@jointcommission.org
As a patient of Saint Vincent, you have the right to take part in decision-making about your care. By law, healthcare providers must provide necessary medical care to all individuals within their care. They are relieved of this duty only if they can demonstrate that the care goes against a person’s wishes.
If you do not want to receive a certain type of treatment, you can make your wishes known. Generally, if you are a competent adult, your doctor and other caregivers must respect your wishes. An advance directive can help ensure that your wishes are followed if you cannot speak for yourself and are terminally ill.
For example, you may be unconscious or too severely ill to:
If you have preferences about the healthcare you want to receive in the event you are unable to express your wishes, you may want to consider an advance directive. There are two types — you can choose one or the other or complete both.
Learn more about completing the two different types of advance directive:
We recommend that you consider these important issues and discuss them with your family before you’re hospitalized. If you don’t get the chance beforehand, then consider doing so at the earliest opportunity during your stay.
If you already have a living will or durable power of attorney, we encourage you to bring copies of these documents to the hospital.
Upon admission to Saint Vincent, you will be offered information about advance directives. Information about organ donation is also available on all patient floors. If you have questions, feel free to talk with your nurse. Our information resources include:
At Saint Vincent, we are committed to protecting your health and privacy. We use the information you provide to:
Information that Saint Vincent collects on this website will not be sold or given to a third party (other than a Saint Vincent agent) and will be accessible only by Saint Vincent and its affiliates and agents. Please review this Notice of Privacy Practices document before proceeding. It will provide you with more information about how Saint Vincent protects and uses information gathered about you.
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The Saint Vincent website contains links to other sites for your convenience. Although we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we cannot guarantee or be held responsible for their content or privacy practices.
Although the web is an open medium, Saint Vincent expects the use of its sites to be within certain acceptable community standards. Therefore, users are prohibited from posting or transmitting any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, inflammatory, pornographic or profane material, or any material that could constitute or encourage conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or would otherwise violate the law. Saint Vincent will fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing Saint Vincent to disclose the identity of anyone posting any such inappropriate information or materials.
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Saint Vincent Hospital adopts and is ultimately responsible and accountable for the administration and enforcement of this policy protecting Competitively Sensitive Information (CSI) in compliance with the Highmark Health Policy Protecting Competitively Sensitive Information for the Highmark Health System as defined in that policy and including all companies designated on Attachment A to this Policy. Learn more about this policy.
