A federal judge left subtlety behind Monday in granting a request by analytics firm Real Time Medical Systems for a preliminary injunction against electronic health records giant PointClickCare over alleged improper data blocking tactics
“PCC has offered no legitimate reason for deploying unsolvable CAPTCHAs,” wrote Judge Paula Xinis of the US District Court for Maryland about ciphers that the data giant started using. The codes kept long-time market player Real Time from accessing data to hundreds of clients at a time.
It was one of a handful of instances where Xinis upbraided the PCC defense for presenting witness or conclusions that had little or no substance to back up their assertions during a two-day hearing late last month.
A PointClickCare spokesperson told McKnight’s Monday that the company will fight Xinis’ decision. It is the largest EHR company in the post-acute care space.
“Today’s ruling allows a single company to obtain a backdoor exception to our security policies that negatively impacts the integrity and performance of our system,” the spokesperson said. ”This is not only bad for our customers, patients and caregivers, but it also sets a dangerous precedent for the industry. We disagree with the Court’s decision and intend to file an appeal.”
PCC also noted that the decision is just an early step in a “long process.” Real Time filed a civil suit in January, claiming that PCC’s insertion of CAPTCHA codes would do the plaintiff irreparable harm, and possibly put it out of business.
Prior to Monday’s ruling, PCC had agreed to suspend use of the CAPTCHAs, which it has done for several weeks. Thus, the judicial decision effectively retains the status quo. PCC’s position is that the CAPTCHAs were introduced as part of a bot prevention policy, an argument Xinis dismantled in Monday’s ruling.
“PointClickCare’s more than 1,900 partners abide by its bot prevention policy and have been accessing patient data through the eight secure options it provides,” countered the PCC spokesperson. “Real Time is the only one who claims there’s an issue. PointClickCare collaborates and provides data to numerous parties on the marketplace, some of whom are commercially successful competitors that are much larger than RTMS, and some of whom offer similar services to RTMS.”
An ‘ugly’ side of competition
The first line of the 26-page ruling released Monday called this a “case [that] concerns the ugly underbelly of electronic access to patient healthcare records.”
Xinis alleged several times in her ruling that PCC’s use of unsolvable CAPTCHAs was a violation of the 21st Century Cures Act. It requires tech firms to share protected data with the aim of improving patient care across the healthcare continuum, though it makes broad exceptions for security and other concerns.
“No evidence supports that PCC had any legitimate good faith use for wholly inscrutable CAPTCHAs which, by definition, blocked Real Time from getting the very records it needs to exist,” she wrote. “But even more damning is the timing of such deployments, which support that PCC used those CAPTCHAs as a device to hamstring or eliminate Real Time as a competitor.”
The judge went further to question’s PCC’s motives when it was “focused on supposedly acquiring Real Time.”
“PCC mined Real Time for proprietary business information only to walk away from such talks without explanation and without sharing any proprietary information of its own,” she wrote. “Shortly thereafter, PCC deployed against Real Time the unsolvable CAPTCHAs in a manner that effectively shut down a substantial portion of Real Time’s business (700 of 1700 facilities) overnight.”
A Real Time spokesperson was already looking ahead Monday afternoon.
“We are pleased with the ruling and the judge’s confirmation that PCC has been unlawfully blocking our access to patient data,” the spokesperson said. ”Real Time’s software has been proven to reduce hospital admissions, pain, and death for patients, and this ruling ensures our software will be able to operate unimpeded for the duration of this case. This is a win not just for Real Time but for patients and the nursing homes responsible for their health and safety.”
No further court dates had been set as of Monday.
