Class action lawsuits allege that the two largest hospital networks in Louisiana, LCMC Health and Willis-Knighton Health, used tracking code on their websites and shared protected patient data. The lawsuits filed by Herman Herman & Katz allege Meta Pixel code potentially analyzed, gathered and shared the sensitive medical data of hundreds of thousands of patients across the LCMC and Willis-Knighton networks, Healthcare IT News reports.
Pixel technology uses a Java tracking script to send an organization’s data to the technology owner, which in this case, is Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Tracked data could be shared with network marketing partners who target individuals with offers and advertisements.
The lawsuit alleges that visitors to the health system websites may have had their protected health information – medical conditions, prescriptions, doctors’ names and previous appointments – sent to Facebook when they scheduled appointments online or through patient apps.
“In one case, for example, a woman received targeted ads about heart disease and joint pain shortly after entering her information into one of the hospital websites,” the firm said in the announcement.
Louisiana law generally prohibits the sharing of personal health information with a third party without patient consent, the trial lawyers say.
