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Particle Health said on Monday that the “overwhelming majority” of its customers are still receiving records from medical software giant Epic Systems despite an ongoing dispute between the 2 corporations over data-sharing practices.
Epic’s software supports greater than 300 million patient records, and Particle acts like a middleman that helps health-care organizations access the information they need. Each corporations belong to an interoperability network called Carequality, which facilitates the exchange of patient information on a big scale.
On March 21, Epic filed a proper dispute with Carequality citing concerns that Particle and its participant organizations “is perhaps inaccurately representing the aim related to their record retrievals.” To hitch the Carequality network, organizations have to be approved and abide by “Permitted Purposes,” generally having to do with treatment, for the exchange of patient records.
Patient data is protected by a federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which requires a patient’s consent or knowledge for third-party access.
Particle said in a release Monday that while Epic “indiscriminately stopped responding” to data requests from a few of its customers due to dispute, most clients weren’t affected. The corporate said it has been pressing Epic to revive connection to impacted customers, and lots of are already back to normal.
“While there may be an ongoing dispute between Epic and Particle Health, related to a few specific customers, the numerous majority of Particle Health customers impacted by Epic’s actions weren’t in any way related to this dispute,” the corporate said in the discharge.
In an announcement to CNBC on Monday, Epic said it discovered that some Particle customers were accessing patient medical records by “falsely claiming to be treating them as patients.” Epic said that after a review, its customers asked the corporate to forestall “a small number” of groups from using Particle’s Carequality connection to access their data.
“This violates the rules and spirit of Carequality, which was established to advance interoperability to enhance treatment for patients,” Epic said within the statement.
Epic said its customers have asked Particle to offer more details about how these organizations are using medical records before it restores access.
Particle CEO Jason Prestinario said in his company’s release that the startup will address the dispute with Epic through official procedural channels.
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