Epic asks court to dismiss ‘baseless’ Particle Health lawsuit
In a letter to Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald this past week, Epic requested a pre-motion conference in support of its anticipated motion to dismiss Particle Health Inc. v. Epic Systems Corporationa Particle Health lawsuit filed last month in the Southern District of New York.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
The 15th of October letter to the court detailed what legal representative Lauren Moskowitz, a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, called “significant legal deficiencies” in the antitrust lawsuit, which alleges that Epic used its influence in the Carequality interoperability framework to target some of Particle’s suppliers’ customers. block.
Moskowitz described a number of “deficiencies” in the complaint and accused Particle Health of “factual errors.”
She said Particle failed to plead a relevant product market, anticompetitive conduct, collusion, antitrust status and more, and attributed the data sharing and analytics company’s complaint to a sour response to a corrective action plan.
After detecting suspicious activity, Epic said it initiated a Carequality dispute in March.
In June, Particle terminated contracts with two of the three organizations involved in the dispute, and they too are no longer Carequality Connections – for twelve months.
“Rather than accept responsibility, Particle initiated this baseless lawsuit under the incredible belief that Epic had violated the Sherman Act by initiating the agreed-upon quality of care process and taking other steps to ensure that patient privacy was protected,” Moskowitz said in the letter.
THE BIG TREND
The sparring between Epic and Particle Health trapped the Carequality network before the dispute resolution process was completed.
But at one statement Regarding the completion of that process, the network noted that Epic alleged that Particle Health “masked” customer IDs behind the Particle Health gateway.
“This claim revealed differences in interpretation of certain Carequality technical requirements,” Carequality said. “With the assistance of a subject matter expert, it was demonstrated that Particle Health was not using a ‘masking gateway’.”
ON THE RECORD
“This lawsuit is Particle’s attempt to divert attention from the public reckoning resulting from Particle’s customers violating patient privacy by unlawfully accessing patient records for non-treatment purposes,” the lawsuit said. legal representative of Epic in the letter.
“We are confident that our antitrust complaint will survive Epic’s motion to dismiss,” a Particle Health spokesperson said Healthcare IT news by email on Friday. “Our lawsuit describes in a detailed, fact-based manner how Epic Systems uses its monopoly power over Americans’ personal health information to stifle competition.”
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.