Giles Bruce reports:
HHS has dropped its appeal of a lawsuit from the American Hospital Association over the use of data trackers on hospital websites.
The federal health agency had appealed a judge’s decision that HHS’ Office of Civil Rights could not prohibit hospitals and health systems from deploying so-called pixel tracking technology on their public-facing websites. HHS filed a motion Aug. 29 to stop pursuing the case.
“The American Hospital Association is pleased that the Office for Civil Rights has decided not to appeal the district court’s decision vacating the new rule adopted in its Online Tracking Technologies Bulletin,” AHA General Counsel Chad Golder said in an Aug. 29 statement. “As the AHA repeatedly explained to OCR — both before and after OCR forced the AHA to file its lawsuit — this rule was a gross overreach by the federal government, imposed without any input from healthcare providers or the general public.”
Read more at Beckers Health IT.
See Matt Fisher’s post on the appeal and what the withdrawal of the appeal may mean in “Ending with a Whimper.”