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Two recent federal cases are providing insight into what to expect in state court litigation related to information blocking, defined in the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) as a practice that interferes with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information. 

On March 12, 2025, the Fourth Circuit upheld the Maryland District Court’s preliminary injunction for the plaintiff in Real Time Medical Systems Inc. v. PointClickCare Technologies, 131 F.4th 205 (2025).  In sum, the Fourth Circuit agreed with the District Court that PointClickCare’s “use of indecipherable CAPTCHAs and choice to block certain users is illegal under the information-blocking provision of the federal Cures Act, which supports [Real Time’s] unfair competition claims” under Maryland law.  The Fourth Circuit relied in part on Intus Care, Inc. v. RTZ Assocs., Inc., Case No. 24-cv-01132, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100190 (June 5, 2024), where a District Court judge found that a violation of the Cures Act would constitute an “independently wrongful” act sufficient to support a claim for intentional interference with prospective economic advantage under California law, even though the Cures Act lacks a private right of action.Continue Reading Recent Federal Cases on Information Blocking Violations Pave Way for State Court Claims and Shed Light on Manner Exception

Last week, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) issued two pieces of guidance on the privacy and security of protected health information (“PHI”) when using telehealth services. One of the documents is intended to help health care providers explain to patients, in plain language, the privacy and security risks of using remote communication technologies for telehealth (the “Provider Telehealth Guidance”). The other provides tips to patients on how to safeguard their PHI when using video apps and other technologies for telehealth (the “Patient Telehealth Guidance”).Continue Reading OCR Issues Guidance to Providers and Patients on Telehealth Privacy and Security

In order to move health care organizations towards consistency in mitigating important cybersecurity threats to the health care sector, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) published multiple guidance documents on best practices for health care organizations to reduce cybersecurity risks (“HHS Cyber Guidance”). The HHS Cyber Guidance is the result of HHS’ public-private partnership with more than 150 cybersecurity and health care experts. While compliance is voluntary, this guidance serves as direction to health care entities on important practices that should be considered and implemented to reduce risk.

Why HHS has published this guidanceContinue Reading HHS Releases Voluntary Cybersecurity Practices Guidance

On February 25, President Obama addressed a small audience at the White House, identifying the need for patient participation in health care and the importance of individualizing treatments for a particular patient. Obama said that precision medicine can lead to reduced costs, better care, and a more efficient health care system.  He stated “the health care system is actually more of a disease-care system in which the patient is passive, you wait until you get sick, a bunch of experts then help you solve it,” and that precision medicine is about “empowering individuals to monitor and take a more active role in their own health.” His remarks were quite genuine and showed his personal interest in precision medicine as he seemed to talk “off script” with his panelists.

A year ago the President launched the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) to accelerate medicine that delivers the right treatment at the right time to the right person, taking into account individuals’ health history, genes, environments, and lifestyles. This includes efforts by the NIH to build a 1 million-person voluntary national research cohort who will partner with researchers, share data, and engage in research to transform our understanding of health and disease through precision medicine.  It also includes efforts by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which has enrolled over 450,000 Veterans in the Million Veteran Program (MVP), a participant-driven research cohort.Vice President Biden’s cancer moonshot initiative builds on this initiative.Continue Reading President Obama Addresses Precision Medicine, Health IT, Data Access, and Security