Mosby v. Ingalls Memorial Hospital
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Mosby, an RN, filed a class-action suit, alleging that she used a medication dispensing system and its finger-scan device, distributed and marketed by BD, to provide patient care, i.e., to authenticate her identity and access controlled and restricted material. Mosby alleged that BD violated the Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14/15(a), (b), (d)) by using the scanning device to collect, use, and/or store her finger scan data without complying with the Act’s notice and consent provisions and by disclosing her purported biometric data to third parties without first obtaining her written consent. BD argued that the finger scan data restricted access to protected health information and medication and was used for health care treatment and operations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 45 C.F.R. 164.501, specifically excluded from the scope of the Act.
On interlocutory appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the Act’s exclusion of ‘information collected, used, or stored for health care treatment, payment, or operations under” HIPAA applies to biometric information of health care workers (as opposed to patients) collected, used or stored for health care treatment, payment or operations under HIPAA. Finger-scan information collected by a health care provider from its employees falls within that exclusion when the employee’s finger-scan information is used for purposes related to ‘health care,’ ‘treatment,’ ‘payment,’ or ‘operations’ as defined by HIPAA.
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