In The Hot Seat Again: eClinicalWorks Faces Billion-Dollar Suit Over Alleged Software Problems

Earlier this year, eClinicalWorks agreed to pay $155 million to the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve allegations that it had faked its conformance with Meaningful Use criteria. The DoJ suit alleged that by withholding information needed for certification, eCW violated the False Claims Act.

Now, the vendor is facing what could be an even more serious legal threat, according to a news report appearing in Becker’s Hospital Review. BHR is reporting administrator of the estate of a deceased cancer patient is suing the vendor over data display errors that may have affected the patient’s care.

What makes the stakes so high in this case is that the complaint is asking the court to certify the case as class action, with members to include “all persons residing in the United States whose physicians used eCW to record and store their medical records at all dates relevant.” The suit is asking the court to award plaintiffs $999 million in damages, Becker’s Hospital Review reports.

According to the complaint, which was filed by Kristina Tot, administrator of the estate of the deceased Stjepan Tot, errors with eCW software began to appear before the cancer patient’s death. For example, “he was unable to display his medical history or progress notes,” the complaint reportedly states.

The cancer patient’s problems were far from unique, however, the suit asserts. According to the complaint, important eCW software functions didn’t work or violated regulatory guidelines. The filing claims the vendor didn’t provide accurate and reliable health information, displayed incorrect panels and didn’t record EHR user actions in audit logs.

The bottom line, the suit claims, is that millions of patient records were compromised, leaving patients and physicians unable to rely on the eCW platform.

I am not qualified to speak on whether there’s any merit to the latest suit against eCW, though I think it’s reasonable to assume that the company may not have its act together. (You might also want to check out the angry eCW critiques on this site — whose publisher, like our fearless leader John Lynn, I know to have an impeccable reputation for honesty.)

Ultimately, it’s hard to say whether this latest suit is largely blowback from the previous certification problem or yet another (extremely) costly headache. Either way, if I were part of its leadership team I’d be more than a little shaken by recent events even if the recent complaint gets dismissed.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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