Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are an agreement between you and Fountain Health Technologies Inc. (“Fountain”, “we”, “us”), a company based in Ontario, Canada. They cover the Fountain app and the fountainhealth.ca website.

Please read them together with our Privacy Policy. You accept both by tapping “I agree” on the screen that links to them. If you used an earlier version of the app, you are asked to read and accept these Terms before you continue. If you only visit the website, these Terms apply to your use of the website.

If you do not agree, do not use Fountain. You can sign out from the agreement screen, and you can ask us to delete your account by writing to support@fountainhealth.ca.

These Terms are between you and Fountain. The clinics and pharmacies that answer requests are not parties to them.

1. WHAT FOUNTAIN DOES

Fountain carries a request from you to a walk-in clinic or pharmacy you choose, and brings back their answer. In the app you can:

• keep your health record: your details, allergies, medications and conditions;
• see nearby clinics and pharmacies on Fountain, with the hours, wait times and status posted for each place;
• read general facts about what walk-in clinics and pharmacists in Ontario can do, which are the same for everyone;
• choose one place and send it a request: Now, to go in today, or Later, by picking up to three times the place offers;
• see the place’s answer, and get messages and reminders about your visit.

When you send a request, Fountain can alert the place you chose by text message, email, push notification or an automated call to its front-desk phone. Which of these it uses depends on the alerts the place has set up. The place reads and answers your request with tools Fountain provides: a web board, a counter tablet app, a reply link in a text message, or the keys on that phone call.

A place can turn on automatic confirmation. If it does, Fountain may confirm your visit on the place’s behalf: for a Now request, using the wait time the place posted; for a Later request, using one of your times that still has room.

2. WHAT FOUNTAIN IS NOT

Fountain is not a health care provider. We do not practise medicine, nursing or pharmacy. We do not give medical advice. We do not diagnose, treat, assess or triage you, decide how urgent your concern is, or recommend a place or a treatment. You choose where your request goes.

Fountain is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. Always talk to a doctor, nurse practitioner, pharmacist or other health professional about your health, and before you make any decision about treatment.

Every clinical decision, such as whether to see you, what is wrong and how to treat it, is made by you and the licensed professionals you see. The clinics and pharmacies on Fountain are independent businesses and regulated health professionals. They are not our employees or agents, and we do not supervise or control their care. Using Fountain does not create a doctor–patient, pharmacist–patient or any other care relationship between you and Fountain.

A place being on Fountain is not an endorsement or a recommendation of that place.

3. EMERGENCIES

When you start a request, the app shows a short list of signs that need emergency care. It is the same fixed list for everyone. It is not an assessment of you, and it cannot cover every emergency. If you tap one of the signs, the app stops before anything is sent to a place and shows you how to call 911.

A place may not answer in time, or at all. If you feel worse while you wait, do not wait for a reply: call 911 or go to an emergency department. Never delay or avoid emergency care, or ignore advice from a health professional, because of anything in Fountain.

4. WHO CAN USE FOUNTAIN

You must be 16 or older and give your real date of birth. Fountain will not accept a date of birth under 16, but we do not check that the date you give is true. There are no parent or guardian accounts.

Fountain is meant for people in Ontario, Canada. Use it only for yourself: an account holds one person’s record, and every request describes that person. If you are 16 or 17, you may use Fountain for yourself.

5. YOUR ACCOUNT

You can sign in with an email and password, a code texted to your phone, Apple or Google. If you use Apple or Google, their terms also apply to that sign-in.

Keep your sign-in details and your phone secure. You are responsible for what happens under your account. Tell us at support@fountainhealth.ca as soon as you think someone else has used it.

6. YOUR RECORD AND WHAT YOU SEND

Clinics and pharmacies rely on what you tell them, especially your allergies, medications and conditions, to prepare for your visit and to treat and prescribe safely. Keep your record accurate, complete and up to date, and check it before you send a request. Wrong or missing information can lead to care that is not safe for you.

Nothing goes to a place until you tick the box agreeing to share that request and your health record with that place, and tap Send. You do this for each request, including when a place says the times you picked do not work and you pick different times. The place then sees your record and your request; the Privacy Policy lists exactly what it sees. If you send a request on to another place, that place gets its own copy.

If you give us information about someone else, such as an emergency contact, you confirm that they agreed to it being shared with us and with the places you send requests to. We do not check it.

Once a place has your information, the place is responsible for it under its own legal and professional duties. When a request ends, we also keep a sealed copy of your record and the request as they stood at that moment, as the Privacy Policy explains.

7. REPLIES, TIMES AND NO GUARANTEE OF CARE

Hours, wait times and whether a place is taking requests are posted by each place, or entered or changed for it by Fountain. They can be late, incomplete or wrong.

After you send a request, the app shows the time you should hear back by. If the place has not answered by then, the request ends and you can choose another place.

A place may decline your request, cancel a confirmed visit, or change its time. A Later visit can only be moved to another of the times you offered. A Now visit can only be moved to another time the same day. A place can mark a visit as missed if it did not see you arrive, and if nobody marks you as arrived by the end of the place’s day, the visit is marked as missed then. A confirmed time is the place’s estimate, and you may still wait when you get there.

Fountain staff can also cancel a request, or move a confirmed visit under the same rules a place follows. If a place leaves requests unanswered, Fountain may pause it so that it stops taking new requests for a while. We may also remove a place from Fountain. Whenever your request is cancelled, ends or moves, you see it in the app.

We do not promise that any place will be open or taking requests, or that it will answer. We do not promise that you will be seen at a particular time or at all, or that a visit will lead to any particular treatment, prescription, note or outcome.

8. TEXTS, PUSH NOTIFICATIONS AND REPLIES

We send push notifications and text messages about your requests: when a visit is confirmed or moved, reminders before a visit, and when a request ends. Messages about a request name the place, and usually the time. Anyone who can see your phone’s screen or messages may see them.

Text messages are on once your phone number is verified. You can turn text messages and push notifications off in the app under Profile → Notifications. Your carrier’s usual message and data rates may apply.

The reminder the evening before a visit asks you to reply NO if you cannot make it. If you text NO within a day after any reminder, we cancel the visit that reminder was about, unless it has already ended, been cancelled or been checked in — then nothing changes, and we tell you so. Otherwise, including when we have not sent you a reminder in the past day, a NO cancels your next confirmed visit, which can be a visit today. YES gets the same reply as NO when that visit is no longer active; otherwise we just acknowledge it, and your visit stays as it is. Only a text that is just one short answer counts: words such as NOT COMING count as NO (CANCEL does not: like STOP, it stops all texts from Fountain’s number), and OK or CONFIRM count as YES. A question or any other reply does not change your visit. We act on these replies only when they come from your verified number. Reply STOP to stop texts from Fountain.

9. FOUNTAIN STAFF AND YOUR RECORD

Fountain staff who run the service can see everything in your account, your health record and your requests. They use it to run and support Fountain, to fix problems, to cancel or move requests as described above, and to act on things you ask us for, such as a copy of your data or deleting your account.

Each time a staff member uses our staff console to open your record, one of your requests, or a list that shows you, we record it. The entry says who it was, when, what was shown and that it was about you. After you delete your account, an entry about a request names the request rather than you. The log is built so that any change to it can be detected. You can see these entries in the copy of your data you can export from the app (Profile → Privacy & security → Export my data). They read, for example, “A member of Fountain staff opened your record”, “A member of Fountain staff opened one of your requests” or “Your name appeared in a list a Fountain staff member opened”. You can ask us for the details of any entry.

Authorized engineers can also work directly in the database to maintain and repair Fountain. That kind of access does not go through the console, so it does not appear in your record log. Staff and engineers who can reach your information are bound by confidentiality.

The Privacy Policy explains this in more detail, including how long the log is kept.

10. COST

Fountain is free for patients. We do not charge you to keep a record or to send requests. If that ever changes, we will tell you in the app first, and we will not charge you unless you agree.

A clinic or pharmacy may charge for its own services, for example if you do not have an Ontario health card, or for a service that OHIP or your plan does not cover. The app may show general notes about cost; they are not a quote. Any payment is between you and the place.

11. ACCEPTABLE USE

Use Fountain only as intended and as the law allows. Do not:

• give false information, or pretend to be someone else;
• send requests for anyone but yourself;
• send requests you do not mean to attend, or use Fountain to harass a place, its staff or ours;
• interfere with Fountain, test its security, or try to reach information that is not yours;
• scrape or bulk-collect data from Fountain;
• copy, change or reverse engineer Fountain, except where the law allows it despite these Terms;
• resell Fountain or use it for a commercial purpose;
• send spam or abuse through the forms on our website.

12. THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

Some parts of Fountain hand you to services run by others. Directions open a Google Maps web link. Calling a place uses your phone’s dialer. Address suggestions come from Google Maps. When you use them, you also agree to the Google Terms of Service (policies.google.com/terms) and the Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service (maps.google.com/help/terms_maps/). Google’s Privacy Policy (policies.google.com/privacy) applies to what Google receives. You can sign in with Apple or Google, and you get the app from the App Store or Google Play. Those services have their own terms and privacy practices, and we are not responsible for them.

13. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Fountain’s software, design, text and branding belong to Fountain or its licensors. We give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app and the website for their intended purpose. We can end that licence as these Terms describe. If you send us feedback, we may use it without owing you anything. “Fountain” and our logos are trademarks of Fountain Health Technologies Inc. Map data © CARTO and © OpenStreetMap contributors.

14. PRIVACY

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, who sees it, where it is stored, how long we keep it, and your choices and rights. It is shown with these Terms before you agree, and it forms part of these Terms.

15. CHANGES TO FOUNTAIN

We may add, change, pause or stop features, or stop offering Fountain. If a change takes away something important that you use, or if we stop offering Fountain, we will tell you in the app beforehand where we reasonably can.

16. SUSPENDING OR ENDING YOUR USE

You can stop using Fountain at any time. You can delete your account in the app (Profile → Delete my account) or by writing to support@fountainhealth.ca. Deleting your account cancels any request in progress and removes your profile, health record and sign-in. A sealed copy of each request you sent stays with us, and a place keeps anything it printed or copied into its own records. The Privacy Policy explains what else remains and for how long.

We may suspend your account if you break these Terms, if we reasonably need to in order to protect you, other patients, a place or Fountain, or if the law requires it. While your account is suspended, you cannot sign in. If you think we suspended it by mistake, write to support@fountainhealth.ca and we will review it and reply.

The parts of these Terms about your record and what you send, intellectual property, no warranties, limits on our liability, responsibility for misuse, disputes and general terms keep applying after you stop using Fountain.

17. CHANGES TO THESE TERMS

The “Last updated” date at the top is this version. A change applies only from the date of the new version, never to anything that happened before it.

If we make a change that matters, the app shows you the new version, and you need to accept it before you keep using the app. If a change only fixes wording and does not change what you or we have agreed, we update the date and do not ask you again. We keep a record of each version you accept. On the website, the version posted at fountainhealth.ca/terms applies from its date.

If you do not accept a change, stop using Fountain and write to support@fountainhealth.ca to delete your account.

18. NO WARRANTIES

We work to keep the app and the website running and their information right, but we provide them “as is” and “as available”. As far as the law allows, we make no promises, warranties or conditions of any kind, express or implied, including about fitness for a particular purpose, merchantable quality or non-infringement. We do not promise that the app or the website will always be available, on time, secure or free of errors. We do not promise that information in them, including hours, wait times and whether a place is taking requests, is accurate, complete or current.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any warranty, condition, right or remedy you have that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including under Ontario consumer protection law.

19. LIMITS ON OUR LIABILITY

Please read this section carefully. It limits what you can claim from us.

As far as the law allows:

• Fountain is not responsible for what any clinic, pharmacy or health professional does or does not do, or for any care you receive or do not receive. That includes a decision to accept or decline a request, waits, delays, diagnoses, prescriptions, treatment and outcomes.
• Fountain is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill, even if we were told they were possible.
• Fountain’s total liability for all claims about the app, the website or these Terms, taken together, is limited to CAD $100. If you paid Fountain more than that in the 12 months before the event that led to the claim, the limit is the amount you paid.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that the law does not allow to be limited or excluded, or takes away rights you have under consumer protection or privacy law. Nothing in these Terms shortens the time you have to make a claim under Ontario law.

These limits reflect what Fountain offers: a free service that carries your request to the place you choose. Fountain does not provide your care.

20. RESPONSIBILITY FOR MISUSE

If someone makes a claim against Fountain because you broke these Terms or the law, or deliberately misused Fountain, you agree to cover Fountain’s reasonable costs of that claim, including reasonable legal fees, as far as the law allows.

21. DISPUTES AND THE LAW THAT APPLIES

If something goes wrong, please tell us first at support@fountainhealth.ca. Most problems can be sorted out that way.

These Terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. A dispute we cannot resolve together goes to the courts of Ontario. You can bring a claim in Ontario’s Small Claims Court if it fits that court’s limits.

These Terms do not require arbitration, and they do not take away your right to go to court or to take part in a class proceeding. Nothing in these Terms stops you from complaining to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, or any other regulator.

22. GENERAL

These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and Fountain about the app and the website. If a court finds part of them unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term right away, we have not given it up. You may not transfer your account or these Terms to anyone else. We may transfer these Terms to a company that takes over the Fountain business, and we will tell you in the app or on our website if that happens.

23. CONTACT

Fountain Health Technologies Inc.
Email: support@fountainhealth.ca
Contact form: fountainhealth.ca/contact

Questions about privacy, including requests for details about staff access to your record, go to privacy@fountainhealth.ca.