Clinician Agreement

1. Purpose

This Clinician Agreement sets out the responsibilities of clinicians and practices using OrthoMetrics.

2. Roles

For patient information entered into the platform:

• The clinician or clinical practice is responsible for the clinical relationship with the patient
• OrthoMetrics acts as the technology platform used to collect, store, and present PROMs data

3. Clinician Responsibilities

Clinicians and practices are responsible for:

• Obtaining appropriate patient consent
• Explaining the purpose of PROMs collection
• Informing patients that questionnaire links may be sent by email or SMS
• Ensuring clinical details entered into the platform are accurate
• Interpreting PROMs results in the appropriate clinical context
• Complying with applicable privacy, health information, and professional obligations

4. Consent

The clinician or practice should ensure the patient understands:

• Participation is voluntary
• Declining does not affect clinical care
• They may withdraw at any time
• Their information will be used for clinical monitoring, audit, and quality improvement
• Research, publication, or external data sharing may require ethics review, locality approval, governance approval, or specific consent

5. Platform Responsibilities

OrthoMetrics will take reasonable steps to:

• Store information securely
• Use access controls
• Maintain reasonable technical safeguards
• Support collection and display of PROMs data
• Limit access to identifiable information to authorised users only

6. Hosting and Communication Providers

The platform is designed to be operated on New Zealand-hosted infrastructure. The operating clinic or practice remains responsible for confirming and documenting the active hosting location, backup location, restore process, and supplier safeguards.

Email messages may be sent using Brevo. SMS messages may be sent using Twilio. Clinicians acknowledge that these providers may process limited information required to deliver communications, including contact details, patient name where needed, message content, operation or recovery wording included in the message, and secure links.

7. Research and Audit

De-identified or aggregate data may be used for audit, quality improvement, or service evaluation. Research, publication, or external data sharing should only occur under an appropriate governance pathway, such as ethics review, locality approval, or specific consent where required. The clinician or practice remains responsible for confirming the correct pathway before using exported data for research or publication.

8. PROM Collection and Data Completeness

OrthoMetrics supports PROM collection, display, and export, but does not guarantee that any particular PROM will be sent, received, opened, completed, or clinically usable.

PROM collection may be incomplete because of patient non-response, withdrawal of consent, unsubscribe or STOP requests, incorrect contact details, email or SMS delivery failure, technical interruption, platform configuration, or clinic workflow decisions.

The clinician or practice remains responsible for monitoring whether expected PROMs have been collected, arranging any clinically necessary follow-up outside OrthoMetrics, checking exported data before clinical, audit, or research use, and interpreting missing or incomplete PROM data cautiously. Missing PROM data should not be treated as evidence that a patient has recovered or does not require follow-up.

9. Clinical Responsibility

OrthoMetrics does not make clinical decisions. The treating clinician remains responsible for diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, and interpretation of PROMs results.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by law, OrthoMetrics is not responsible for:

• Clinical decisions
• Patient outcomes
• Failure of patients to complete questionnaires
• Incomplete PROM collection or incomplete datasets
• Failed email or SMS delivery
• Incorrect information entered by users

11. Termination

Use of the platform may be discontinued at any time. Data handling after termination should comply with applicable clinical, legal, and privacy obligations.

12. Governing Law

This agreement is governed by the laws of New Zealand.

13. Contact

For questions, contact: support@orthometrics.co.nz