Alleged Faulty EHR Security Leads to Billion Dollar Lawsuit

eClinicalWorks has been hit with a $1 billion class-action lawsuit over allegations that it failed to protect the security of millions of patient’s records—and that one patient with cancer actually died as a result of faulty patient EHRs. The latter charge says the deceased was “unable to determine reliably when his first symptoms of cancer appeared as his medical records failed to accurately display his medical history on progress notes.” More broadly, the suit contends that eClinicalWorks was negligent for “failing to provide, secure, and safeguard accurate and reliable health information of patients throughout the United States and for falsely representing that its software complied with requirements for payment of incentives under the meaningful use program.” It also claims that millions of patients with health records stored on eClinicalWorks software have compromised EHRs because eClinicalWorks’ EHR solution did not meet health IT certification requirements. The company has already agreed to pay $155 million to settle previous charges that it misled consumers about the certification of its health IT and paid some customers for positive product promotion.