Learn what details to provide when hiring a data forensic expert during medical malpractice litigation to increase efficiency and cost effectiveness.
Prepare a summary of the following:
Develop timeline of notable events
Organize case documents and provide to your experts
Copy of the Complaint
Requests to produce
Interrogatories filed
Replies to Interrogatories
EMR Produced
Audit Logs Produced
Ask Your EMR Data Expert to Prepare the EMR for efficient review by attorneys & medical experts
OCR the produced EMR (Allows for keyword searching)
Convert the EMR to a spreadsheet format where practical
Identify key events and providers
Consider filtering for key dates, workers, or concepts
Produce subset pdf documents / spreadsheets that are more easily reviewable
Consider having pivot tables created showing overviews
In-Person Direct access provides additional information
Routing History
What the notes looked like at various points in time
Access to deleted records
Communications between healthcare workers
Example Screenshots from Popular HIS Systems follow
Enigma Forensics EMR Data Forensics Experts provide detailed analysis and interpretation of an EMR Audit Trail to assist Medical Malpractice Attorneys during litigation. We help win cases! Hire an Expert (HAE)! Call 312-668-0333
Hiring an expert in electronic medical records (EMR’s) will help uncover record manipulation that will assist law professionals in winning medical malpractice cases for their clients. Check out this blog to see how a Kentucky woman waged a monumental fight against the medical system that failed her!
A site visit by an expert pays off, a Computer Forensic Expert Finds the Smoking Gun in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) audit trail!
Kim Johnson noticed a lump on her right breast and because her mother died of breast cancer she feared the worst. In January 2015, she went to Fleming County Hospital in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, to get a mammogram. When she received a letter from the hospital that proved she had “no evidence of cancer”, this Kentucky mother of eight breathed a huge sigh of relief. Several months had passed and the lump continued to grow so she decided to get a second opinion. She was horrified to learn she has stage 4 cancer.
Sadly, Fleming County Hospital had sent the wrong letter, giving Johnson the all-clear instead of directing her to return for a follow-up examination. In September 2016, Johnson filed a lawsuit against the hospital claiming doctors misdiagnosed her, and that two employees deleted evidence of the letter saying she didn’t have cancer. How did she know this?
She hired a digital forensic expert!
Ms. Johnson and her lawyer’s hired a digital forensic expert skilled in examining EMR audit trails. During a court-ordered on-site visit, they found employee EMR entries that edited the history and deleted the evidence of the erroneous letter claiming that she was cancer-free.
In the wake of the misdiagnosis by the hospital, Ms. Johnson is left with a long battle with cancer. If her cancer would have been recognized at an earlier stage her quality of life would have been different as a result. She trusted the system and it failed her.
Who protects the patient? The HIPPA law ensures accountability
Required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), hospitals and healthcare providers are to maintain an audit trail of all access, entry, and modification of the patient’s EMR to ensure accountability. Hiring a computer forensics expert that has experience with examining Health Information Systems (HIS) and the related EMR audit trails that can make or break your case. Call Enigma Forensics staff today if you think you may have a case requiring similar assistance. 312-668-0333.
Trade Secret theft = loss in revenue. Use your spider sense when someone from your team departs the company. They can unsuspectedly upload electronic data to the Cloud for later use that will drain your company of future revenue and present an immediate loss! Be aware-hire an expert to forensically image the departed employees hard drive. It will save you money and headaches!
Every company will have an employee leave but how do you protect the company’s trade secrets from leaving with them?
It is more common that you know for employees to leave for a competitor. On their way out the door, they will take with them proprietary data that can result in great harm to an organization including; loss of employees, customers, and important revenue streams. If someone on your team recently left your company and is suspected of having joined a competitor, it is vitally important to take immediate steps to protect your organization’s electronic assets.
What types of data do departed employees take?
Enigma Forensics has seen it all! 1. Client Lists 2. Blueprints 3. Historical quotations 4. Programming files 5. Source Code 6. Rebate levels offered from various vendors 7. Supply Chain information 8. Business protocols that competition can replicate
Hire an Expert!
When investigating departed employees the first step is to create a forensic image of the past employee’s hard drive. We recommend NOT to ask an internal employee to perform this task but most importantly hire a qualified computer expert from outside your company. This avoids any underlying loyalty current employees may have for the departed team member. An expert is trained to ensure the chain of custody is preserved so that it can be presented during a trial. Many have learned that hiring an expert is worth every dime!
What are the benefits?
Enigma Forensics computer experts will look for all types of activity that took place, including websites visited, files accessed, files transferred to external media, files uploaded to DropBox or other cloud accounts, concealment activities; encryption, and deletion of electronic evidence.
If your company is on the other side of a trade secret misappropriation litigation, we encourage you to hire an expert that will perform an initial assessment of the new employee’s activities. This will provide you with the benefit of knowing if the employee did something that could prove harmful to your company. It’s not uncommon that misappropriated trade secrets are done without the new employer’s knowledge. Yet, the new employer can be named in litigation as a co-defendant! Ouch!
Enigma Forensics has worked for both the plaintiff and defendant in trade secret litigation. Our experts are CISSP certified, what is CISSP? Certified Information Systems Security Professional. This advanced level of certification is considered the gold standard in the field of information security. It is a globally recognized certification offered by (ISC)2. (ISC)2 is known to be the world’s leading organization specializing in certifications and training for professionals in the cybersecurity domain. Click here to learn more about ICS2. https://www.isc2.org/
Call Enigma Forensics at 312-668-0333 for a complimentary consultation.
