In the recent Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas decision in the case of Baker v. Geisinger Community Medical Center, No. 2016-CV-2946 (C.P. Lacka. Co. April 7, 2017 Nealon, J.), Judge Terrence R. Nealon addressed a Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel a hospital in a medical malpractice action to produce the “audit trail” for her electronic medical records from the date of the Plaintiff’s admission to the hospital up to the present.
Judge Terrence R. Nealon Lackawanna County |
The court noted that the Plaintiff produced deposition testimony reflecting disparities between the testimonial recollections of the healthcare providers and the entries contained in the hospital chart. The court noted that the audit trail will reveal which healthcare providers reviewed what information, when they acquired that knowledge, where and when they made their respective entries, and whether those entries had ever been edited or altered.
Judge Nealon noted that electronically stored information is discoverable if it is relevant and can be produced without undue cost, burden, or delay, and where substantially similar information is not available or readily accessible by less burdensome means.
The court in Baker held that, since the audit trail is relevant to the claims at issue and may be secured and produced without significant cost or hardship, Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel was granted under the proportionality standard governing discovery requests for electronically stored information.
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Anyone wishing to read this decision by Judge Nealon in the Baker case may click HERE.
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