Healthcare providers and Epic are taking a stand to safeguard patients' health information, but here's where it gets controversial... A federal lawsuit targets companies that exploit confidential patient records for profit, and it's a wake-up call for the entire healthcare industry. Epic and a group of healthcare providers are taking legal action to defend patient privacy and protect sensitive medical information. The lawsuit states that Health Gorilla, a health information network, enabled Mammoth, RavillaMed, and other companies to improperly access and monetize nearly 300,000 patient medical records from members of the Epic community. This is in addition to an unknown number of records taken from organizations nationwide, including from the VA and providers using other EHRs. OCHIN, Reid Health, Trinity Health, UMass Memorial Health, and Epic have filed suit to stop conduct that threatens patient privacy and the integrity of care. The filing cites misconduct including that the defendants: Operate as organized syndicates to monetize patient records without patients' knowledge or consent; Request patient records for the purpose of treating patients but take patient records for other purposes, including to market them to lawyers looking for potential claimants to join mass tort or class action lawsuits; Obscure their true purpose through fictitious websites, shell entities, and sham National Provider Identification (NPI) numbers to create an illusion of legitimate patient treatment activity; Cover their tracks by inserting junk data into patient medical records to give the false impression that they are treating patients, which risks patient safety and wastes valuable clinician time. The lawsuit continues, "when caught, rather than stopping their activity, the bad entity owners, operators and those in their inner circles simply create new companies. The scheme thus operates like a Hydra: when one fraudulent entity is exposed, the bad actors birth a new one" and "if not stopped, they will continue to inappropriately market the patient data they have already taken and will take more." At stake are both the protection of medical records that contain some of a person's most sensitive data, such as genetic, mental wellbeing, and reproductive information, and the ability of physicians to keep their promises to patients that their information will be kept private. These actors are putting the enormous positive patient outcomes achieved through interoperability at imminent risk, when used appropriately, interoperability ensures that medical care is informed by a patient's medical history, allowing healthcare providers to improve patient outcomes. Read the full complaint here (http://www.epic.com/content/what-you-put-up-with-is-what-you-stand-for.pdf). But what do you think? Do you agree with the lawsuit's stance? Or do you think there's a different interpretation to consider? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
