Over 20 lawsuits have been filed against HCA after the private information of 11 million patients were posted on an online forum after a data breach. Patients’ names, cities, states, zip codes, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, genders and appointment information were made public.
These filings have been consolidated into one class action lawsuit, where the patients allege HCA failed to adequately protect patient information, putting their privacy at risk. As HCA faces the fallout of the data breach, executives announced a deal with Google Cloud to bring Generative AI into HCA hospitals. The partnership is currently in four HCA ERs, where physicians have hands-free devices with a medical transcription app that records the patient visits. HCA is also currently testing a tool that automates handoff reports between nurses. While HCA claims this will provide more efficiency and better care, nurses have repeatedly called on healthcare executives to safely staff hospitals, and not use unchecked and unregulated technology.