News: OIG fines EHR vendor $132,500 for patient safety reporting failures

Only months after eClinicalWorks was sued for nearly $1 billion over inaccurate and unreliable data, the OIG fined the software company $132,500 for failing to report patient safety issues with its software to regulators within a specified timeframe, violating an agreement with the federal government.

The breached agreement was signed as part of a $155 million settlement with the Department of Justice in May 2017 after federal prosecutors alleged the company knowingly caused providers to submit falsified EHR incentive payments, according to FierceHealthcare.

According to the OIG, eClinicalWorks did self-identify several patient safety issues since the agreement took effect, but they failed to submit notifications of the issues in a timely manner.

The agreement specifies that a reportable event is a patient safety issue or any identified instance of actual or suspected patient harm related to the EHR software. In the event of a patient death, injury, or hospital readmission, the software company is required to report the event to the OIG within 48 hours. All other events, according to FierceHealthcare, have to be reported within seven days.

The eClinicalWorks settlement marked a turning point for the industry making such vendors more accountable for care outcomes related to their products, FierceHealthcare reported. Several other EHR vendors have received similar demands from federal prosecutors.

Editor’s note: To read FierceHealthcare’s coverage of this story, click here. To read the agreement that eClinicalWorks is held to, click here. To read about the case for which eClinicalWorks was sued for $1 billion earlier this year, click here.