Page 16 - Part 2 Navigating Electronic Media in a Healthcare Setting

SVMIC Navigating Electronic Media in a Healthcare Setting

Of course, on occasion, the audit trail can serve to help the
provider, as seen in the following case:

CASE STUDY

The wife of a deceased patient sued a hospital and a neurology

group for failure to treat her husband in a timely manner. The
husband had suffered a stroke and died six hours after admission

to the hospital. During the course of the lawsuit, two hospital
nurses testified that they had repeatedly called the group's

answering service to report condition changes and to request

orders. The neurology group denied that it had received more
than one call from the hospital. The group produced transcripts

of texts sent to the cell phone of the on-call physician by the

answering service. The transcripts revealed that the only text
received by the on-call neurologist was one informing him that

the patient had expired. Suspecting that the cell phone had been
wiped, the plaintiff's attorney hired a forensic examiner to analyze

the neurologist's cell phone. The forensic examiner found no
tampering or deleted messages. This confirmed that the

physician had received only one text about the patient. Because

of the cell phone transcript, the plaintiff dropped the case against
the neurology group but continued to pursue the case against

the hospital, which quickly settled with the plaintiff.

Although this case involved a cell phone’s audit trail rather than an

EHR, this is an example that electronic device audit trails not only
reveal what was accessed or what actions were taken, but also

what was not.

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