Jefferson Health is facing a federal class action lawsuit which alleges that the hospital violated a Philadelphia man’s privacy rights by enabling Facebook to track confidential health information and match it to social media profiles, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today.
According to the story, Robert Stewart, who filed the suit with his wife, Nancy, used the hospital’s online patient portal to discuss ways to manage his diabetes with his doctors and then noticed that his Facebook feed was flooded with ads for Ozempic and other medications.
The lawsuit states that Jefferson patients were tracked on the health system’s homepage, as well as within a password-protected portal where doctors and patients communicate directly. Jefferson denied using Facebook’s third-party tracking technology, Meta Pixel, on its patient portals in the document below.
Redeemer Health, which owns and operates Holy Redeemer Hospital in the Meadowbrook section of Abington and a branch in Huntingdon Valley, has “faced similar accusations in lawsuits testing patient protection laws that were written before the age of social media networks and mobile apps,” The Inquirer said.
From the article:
The cases could offer a rare look into health systems’ interactions with now-ubiquitous third-party tracking, which lets businesses learn about their customers’ interests to better target advertising. Retailers use tracking to get insight on what types of clothes and shoes their customers like best, and media companies use it to tailor news feeds to topics of interest to their readers.
But in health care, the practice has been controversial because people’s medical information is protected by HIPAA, a federal privacy law that prohibits doctors, hospitals, and insurers from sharing personal details about patients without their permission.
In the Jefferson case, the concern about trackers embedded within the secure portal is especially worrisome, Stewart’s lawyers said, because patients logging in expect the same level of privacy as inside a doctor’s office. They declined to make Stewart and another patient named in the lawsuit available for interviews.
As courts grapple with the legal issues surrounding third-party tracking, many hospital systems nationally have moved away from the practice.
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