Electronic health record giant Epic and startup Particle Health have agreed to a dispute resolution put forward by a national interoperability nonprofit caught in the middle, but the conflict will continue playing out in a federal court.
Both sides expressed satisfaction with the resolution developed by Carequality, an industry stakeholder group aiming to increase interoperability between vendors, clinics, hospitals and third-party health tech companies.
Related: Epic fires back at Particle lawsuit
Organizations can request patients' medical information from each other through Carequality's network. At the heart of the Epic-Particle Health conflict is the ability to request, share or block such information.
On March 21, Epic filed a dispute with Carequality responding to data-sharing queries from some customers of Particle Health, which helps providers and health technology companies aggregate and share data on the Carequality network. Epic has said it shut off access at the request of its customers because of concerns over potential misuse of protected health information.
Last month, Particle Health sued Epic in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging Epic used its market power to block potential competitors from its payer platform. It also disputed Epic's claims about information misuse and alleged Epic used its influence to curry favor with Carequality regarding information access.
Epic through a spokesperson denied Particle's claims in the filing.
For the resolution published Tuesday, Carequality's steering committee, which included members from various stakeholder groups, adopted the recommendations of an unidentified panel. It put Particle Health on a corrective action plan for six months to confirm the company follows its own processes for onboarding new customers. Epic, in turn, agreed to update Carequality for six months regarding its access policies, among other tenets of the resolution.
Spokespeople from Epic and Particle Health said the resolution, a redacted version of which was posted on Carequality's website, validated several of their respective claims.
The Epic spokesperson said the company has always used objective criteria to determine access and that it will share policies with Carequality as outlined in the resolution.
The spokesperson for Particle Health said the company has no plans to dismiss the suit, given that Carequality could not fully address all of the complaints it lodged against Epic.