HIPAA Blog

[ Friday, January 09, 2015 ]

 

Bad Employee Does Not Always Equal Employer Liability: Kettering Health Network was sued by a woman whose estranged husband, while an employee of Kettering, wrongfully accessed her and family members' medical records.  She sued on a qui tam action, alleging the hospital wrongfully took Meaningful Use funds.  The court ruled against her, saying Kettering in fact did what they were supposed to under Meaningful Use: they installed controls and did the risk analysis.  The controls obviously weren't fool-proof, cause that fool husband got around them.  But it was actually the hospital that caught him, proving that the controls were at least of some use.

This is not exactly opposite of the Indiana Walgreens case (there are tons of differentiating factors), but indicates that just because an employee goes rogue, it doesn't necessarily mean the employer has to be liable.

Jeff [4:30 PM]

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