Lurie Children’s Hospital has been hit with a class action lawsuit, accusing it of allowing certain workers at the hospital to allegedly illegally access private patient files, including those of children who had been examined for signs of sexual abuse.
The hospital, however, said the incident at the heart of the lawsuit has been addressed and those workers “no longer work for the hospital.”
On May 8, attorneys with the firm of Edelson P.C. filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court against the world-renowned children’s hospital in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.
Jay Edelson
| Edelson P.C.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a woman identified only as Jane Doe, and her unnamed child, Baby Doe.
According to the complaint, Jane Doe took her child, then age three, to Lurie in early 2019 “for an extraordinarily sensitive procedure: a sexual abuse examination.”
The complaint asserts Jane Doe would learn over the following 12 months that two Lurie employees allegedly viewed her daughter’s medical records without authorization. The complaint asserts those employees also viewed the records of “thousands of other patients.”
According to the complaint, the hospital notified Jane Doe in late December 2019 that one employee, “an unidentified nursing assistant” had accessed her daughter’s medical records. The letter from the hospital said that employee was fired.
However, the complaint said, after Jane Doe hired her lawyers and contacted the hospital, Lurie allegedly revealed a second employee had also accessed the records.
The complaint asserts more than 8,000 patients’ records were also allegedly improperly accessed.
The complaint said it is as yet unknown why the workers looked at the records.
“It’s possible that these employees harbored an undesirable interest in looking at children’s medical records – in which case Lurie’s laissez-faire approach to its patients’ medical records makes a position at the hospital an ideal one,” the complaint said. “It’s also possible that the employee is involved in the well-established black market for medical records, in which such records sell for up to $1,000 per record on the dark web.”
The complaint asserts without court intervention, “these breaches are guaranteed to continue.”
The lawsuit seeks to expand the action to include a class that would include all Lurie patients whose records were allegedly accessed in the alleged breaches from September 2018 to February 2020.
The complaint seeks injunctions against the hospital; the establishment of a “trust fund to provide ongoing credit monitoring and identity theft response services” to those allegedly affected by the alleged breaches; unspecified “restitution” to Jane Doe and the plaintiffs’ class; as well as unspecified damages “to be determined at trial,” plus attorney fees.
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Lurie Children’s Hospital released a prepared statement:
“In December 2019 and May 2020, Lurie Children’s notified some of our patients about two nurse assistants who had accessed certain patients’ medical records without an identified patient need. We have no reason to suspect any misuse of patient information associated with this incident.
“Lurie Children’s addressed this issue in accordance with our disciplinary policies, and the employees no longer work for the Hospital. We remain committed to providing the highest standard of patient care, as well as protecting the privacy and confidentiality of our patients.”