Terms of Service

1. Restricted Institutional Access & Confidentiality

Access to designated institutional portals, data feeds, and advance evaluation previews is strictly restricted to authorized healthcare institutions, hospital networks, and their verified representatives engaged in formal evaluation, verification, or commercial licensing discussions with Davos Healthcare.

All pre-publication and post-publication evaluations, content, scoring models, factor-level breakdowns, percentiles, and benchmarking deliverables provided within restricted portals constitute confidential and proprietary trade secrets of Davos Healthcare. Access is granted solely for internal institutional evaluation. Any unauthorized sharing, leaking, republication, scraping, commercial dissemination, or disclosure to third parties or media outlets without express prior written authorization is strictly prohibited and subject to immediate legal and injunctive relief.

2. Intellectual Property, Trademarks & Commercial Rights

a. Exclusive Proprietary Ownership: The Service, including without limitation the four-domain and 10-factor audit methodology, algorithmically derived numeric scores, artificial intelligence (AI) data models, data validation matrices, scoring algorithms, interactive visual architectures, taxonomy, evaluations, and directories, represents the sole and exclusive intellectual property of Davos Healthcare and its licensors.

b. Limited License & Prohibited Exploitation: Authorized users are granted a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access evaluations solely for internal, non-commercial informational review. Users and institutions shall not:

• Deconstruct, reverse-engineer, benchmark, or extract the underlying algorithms, weights, scoring code, or datasets.
• Commercially exploit, market, sell, sublicense, publish, or redistribute any evaluation, badge, score, or tier designation without an executed licensing contract.
• Utilize bots, crawlers, scrapers, or automated tools to ingest or harvest data from the Service.

c. Proprietary Trademarks & Credential Display: “Davos Healthcare™”, “Star Medallion™”, “The C3 Davos of Healthcare™”, “Davos of Healthcare™”, and associated medallions, logotypes, insignias, crests, and tier seals are proprietary trademarks of Davos Econometrics and its affiliates.

Strict Licensing Mandate: No hospital, health system, academic medical center, government entity, or commercial enterprise may display, advertise, publicize, market, or issue press announcements referencing the Star Medallion™ credential, medallions, ranking, star tier, geographic designations, or scoring without executing a formal, active Star Medallion Credential and Licensing Agreement accompanied by authorized brand guidelines. Unauthorized use constitutes trademark infringement, unfair competition, and false advertising under applicable federal, state, and international law.

3. Nature of Service: Editorial Opinion & Evaluative Expression

All evaluations, ratings, rankings, scores, and Star Medallion™ tier assignments published or provided by Davos Healthcare represent protected evaluative expressions, research findings, and editorial opinions of Davos Healthcare derived from algorithmic data models and publicly available records.

They do not constitute statements of objective, incontrovertible historical fact, nor do they constitute medical, clinical, regulatory, accreditation, or financial determinations. Inclusion, non-inclusion, tier classification, or omission of any facility does not imply that Davos Healthcare endorses, recommends, disfavors, or censures any healthcare provider, practitioner, or health system.

4. Absolute Unilateral Authority Over Methodology, Evaluation & Directory Inclusion

Davos Healthcare maintains sole, absolute, and unreviewable editorial and commercial discretion over the design, execution, and modification of its evaluations. Davos Healthcare expressly reserves the unilateral right, at any time, without limitation, and without prior notice, liability, or right of appeal, to:

1. Modify, adjust, reweight, introduce, or discontinue any domain, metric, factor, algorithm, data filter, AI model, or calculation methodology.
2. Determine institutional eligibility, including the unilateral definition, application, and refinement of General Acute Care Hospital (GACH) criteria, bed-capacity thresholds, and multi-specialty surgical standards.
3. Add, reclassify, promote, demote, suspend, exclude, or revoke any hospital, health system, Star Medallion™ designation, or directory listing based on updated data, methodological refinement, judgement, expertise, compliance reviews, or audit findings.
4. Determine baseline cohort sizing, backfill allocations, and publication schedules.

No hospital, healthcare network, or third party acquires any vested right, contractual entitlement, or legitimate expectation to receive, retain, or maintain any Star Medallion™ tier, evaluation score, or directory inclusion.

5. Medical, Clinical & Operational Disclaimers

THE SERVICE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE, TRIAGE, OR CLINICAL DIAGNOSES.

a. Non-Clinical Informational Use: The Service and its outputs are designed strictly for macro-level administrative, institutional benchmarking, and general comparative informational analysis. They are never a substitute for professional clinical judgment, patient-specific diagnostic evaluations, or formal regulatory accreditations.

b. No Guarantee of Outcomes or Safety: The Service and Star Medallion™ evaluations reflect relative macro factors and analyses across selected indicators at a discrete point in time. Davos Healthcare does not guarantee, warrant, or represent individual patient outcomes, clinical safety, hygiene compliance, mortality rates, or quality of care at any listed facility.

c. Operational Independence: Medical professionals, hospital administrators, payers, and patients must not base clinical pathways, emergency transfers, surgical decisions, or insurance coverage determinations solely upon the metrics published on the Service.

6. Data Sources, Third-Party Records & AI Disclaimer

Evaluations integrate third-party public registries, governmental datasets, institutional disclosures, and AI-assisted data harvesting. While Davos Healthcare implements rigorous auditing protocols, the Service makes no representations, warranties, or guarantees—express or implied—regarding the absolute accuracy, completeness, currency, error-free status, or timeliness of external records, government datasets, or automated parsing models. Numeric metrics and Star Medallion™ designations reflect relative performance estimates within the proprietary dataset and are subject to continuous algorithmic recalibration without notice.

7. “As-Is” Provision & Absolute Limitation of Liability

a. “AS-IS” Warranty Disclaimer: The Service, directories, scores, badges, and all related materials are provided strictly on an “AS-IS” and “AS-AVAILABLE” basis. Davos Healthcare disclaims all representations and warranties of any kind, whether express, statutory, or implied, including without limitation warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, uninterrupted service, or freedom from defects or system errors.

b. Exclusion of Damages: To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall Davos Healthcare, its parent entities, affiliates, licensors, directors, officers, employees, advisors, or agents be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages—including, without limitation, loss of business, lost profits or revenue, loss of goodwill, patient diversion, reputational harm, business interruption, or data corruption—arising out of or related to access to, use of, reliance upon, inability to use, or modification of the Service, evaluations, or directory listings, under any legal theory (whether contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, defamation, or otherwise), even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

c. Absolute Aggregate Liability Ceiling: In no event shall the total cumulative liability of Davos Healthcare and its affiliates arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service exceed the lesser of: (i) the total licensing fees actually paid by the claiming institution to Davos Healthcare in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the claim; or (ii) One Hundred U.S. Dollars ($100.00 USD).

8. Comprehensive Institutional Indemnification

You and your institution agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Davos Healthcare, its parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, and each of their respective officers, directors, members, employees, advisors, successors, and agents from and against any and all claims, demands, actions, suits, investigations, losses, liabilities, damages, judgments, penalties, settlements, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and litigation expenses) arising out of or related to:

1. Your or your institution’s access to, use, or misuse of the Service, evaluation outputs, directories, or Star Medallion™ trademarks.
2. Any public display, advertising campaign, commercial representation, or marketing material by your institution referencing Davos Healthcare or the Star Medallion™ credential.
3. Any breach or alleged breach of these Terms of Service or associated licensing agreements.
4. Any operational, medical, clinical, administrative, or financial decisions made by your institution or personnel in connection with Service data.
5. Any claim asserted by a third party, patient, regulatory body, or competitor arising from your institution’s clinical performance, medical outcomes, or commercial exploitation of your evaluation status.

9. Governing Law, Mandatory Arbitration & Class Action Waiver

a. Governing Law & State of Record: These Terms of Service, the Service, and any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating hereto shall be governed by, construed, and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, United States of America, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law.

b. Mandatory Binding Arbitration: Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms, the Service, evaluations, or the breach, termination, enforcement, interpretation, or validity thereof shall be resolved exclusively through final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) in accordance with its Commercial Arbitration Rules, before a single neutral arbitrator. The place of arbitration shall be New York, New York. Judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof.

c. CLASS ACTION WAIVER: ALL CLAIMS AND DISPUTES MUST BE BROUGHT IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF, CLASS REPRESENTATIVE, OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. THE ARBITRATOR SHALL NOT CONSOLIDATE CLAIMS OR PRESIDE OVER ANY FORM OF REPRESENTATIVE OR CLASS PROCEEDING.

10. Privacy & Data Handling

When institutional inquiries are submitted or credential access is registered, Davos Healthcare collects relevant professional and institutional contact data (including names, executive titles, institutional affiliations, business emails, and communications). Data is processed in accordance with the Davos Healthcare Privacy Policy to coordinate evaluations, audit verifications, and licensing engagements. Davos Healthcare does not sell institutional inquiry data to third parties for commercial marketing purposes.

11. Severability, Survival & Entire Agreement

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable by an arbitrator or court of competent jurisdiction, such provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect. Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 shall survive any termination of access. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between the user and Davos Healthcare regarding non-licensed use of the Service.

12. Modifications & Effective Date

Davos Healthcare reserves the right to revise, update, or amend these Terms of Service at any time without prior written notice. Updates become effective immediately upon posting to the Service. Continued access or use following any revisions constitutes full acceptance of the updated Terms.