Patient Opt-Out

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Flatiron Health is committed to improve and extend lives by learning from the experience of every person with cancer.

In service of this mission, Flatiron works with over 280 oncology clinics, several academic centers, the Food & Drug Administration, the National Cancer Institute, and biopharma companies, to create data sets that enable our clinics to provide the best care possible and researchers to accelerate their understanding of the way cancer treatments work. You can see some examples of how we’re working to advance cancer research here.

For many oncology clinics across the country, Flatiron provides an electronic health record (EHR) software called OncoEMR®. If you are treated at one of these clinics, Flatiron accesses your data to help the clinic with your care. Flatiron also has partnerships with academic medical centers to provide quality monitoring and outcomes research.

As part of its engagements with oncology clinics and academic medical centers, Flatiron may  also have certain additional rights pertaining to research and de-identification. Specifically, Flatiron has the ability to create de-identified data sets that are made available to third parties through Flatiron’s real world data products. These products include tumor-specific and pan-tumor datasets with deep clinical, genomic and outcomes variables that may be used for research purposes by Flatiron’s partners. The datasets we share with third parties for research purposes are de-identified in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) and never contain your personally identifiable information.  

In addition to the de-identified datasets referenced above, some of our engagements with oncology clinics and academic medical centers allow for Flatiron to conduct internal research using your data. In the rare instances that research cannot be done using Flatiron’s de-identified real world data products, all such research is done in accordance with HIPAA standards. Please note that even in those instances where we do not use the de-identified real world data products for internal research, only the minimum amount of data that is required for the research is used and all direct identifiers relating to an individual patient are removed, such as name and social security number.   

Please know that Flatiron will never use your information – even in de-identified form – for marketing purposes.

Your data, along with that of thousands of other patients, is contributing to cancer research and is helping to accelerate the development of new treatment options for future patients. However, we respect your right as a patient to opt-out of this research. If you wish to know whether you are treated at a clinic that uses Flatiron’s technology, please ask your provider for the name of the EHR that they use. If you are still unsure whether your information is included in our datasets, or if you would like to opt-out of our research, please email patientprivacy@flatiron.com with your First Name, Last Name, Email, and Phone Number. From there, a member of the Flatiron team will contact you to confirm that your opt-out request has been processed.