By Heather Landi 0
September 23, 2024
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Photo Source: Unsplash,
Carequality's role in the dispute
Both Epic and Particle Health are connected to Carequality, which operates a nationwide health data exchange service used by more than 600,000 care providers, 50,000 clinics and 4,200 hospitals to access patients’ medical records. Carequality says it supports the exchange of 400 million clinical documents each month.
Carequality is made up of dozens of implementer organizations that in turn onboard their participant organizations to the framework. Epic connects its provider customers to Carequality as an extension of its Care Everywhere network.
Organizations that connect to Carequality agree to an “interoperability framework,” which is a collection of legal, governance and technical documents used to operationalize trusted exchange of health information nationwide, according to the organization.
Epic filed a formal dispute with Carequality on March 21, claiming that Particle was sharing patient data with some companies who were then using the data for reasons unrelated to treatment. "This poses potential security and privacy risks, including the potential for HIPAA Privacy Rule violations in the event disclosures of protected health information were made under the Treatment Permitted Purpose when the requesting entities did not have treatment relationships with the patients to whom the records related,” Epic said in the notice to its customers.
At the time, Epic said its 15-member Care Everywhere Governing Council flagged three companies, who are Particle Health customers, for questionable use of patient data not related to patient care or treatment.
The “treatment” purpose of use is the only data request healthcare organizations are required to respond to, according to health IT experts.
In the lawsuit, Particle alleges that Epic's "baseless complaints" were a ploy to "intimidate it into exiting the market."
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