The Health System Acuses the University of Divulging Trade Secrets

The Medical University of South Carolina accused a number of soon-to-be-former workers of leaking trade secrets to another health System in order to build a competing treatment programme in a lawsuit filed this week. A group of clinicians reportedly plotted a “wholesale departure” of physicians, nurses, technicians, employees, and fellows from MUSC’s Division of Head and Neck Oncology, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Charleston County Court.

The organisation did so, according to MUSC, in order to open a head and neck practise at HCA Healthcare’s Trident Medical Center in Charleston. According to information and belief, the physicians conspired with each other, as well as HCA and Trident, to engage in unlawful and lawful behaviour using unlawful means to carry out their overall plan and scheme, which resulted in MUSC and University Medical Associates being harmed.

According to MUSC, misuse of private information was a crucial aspect of the physicians’ alleged conspiracy. According to the complaint, MUSC identified and purchased the equipment needed to undertake “advanced and difficult” surgical operations as it expanded its cover the past 20 years. In order to accomplish those processes, it also created physician preference cards and tool lists.

The preference cards are at the centre of MUSC’s complaint: they list precise tools, supplies, room design, instrument kinds and brands, medications, and procedures to follow for each specialty surgery. The cards of MUSC are not in the public domain. According to the health System, accessing them requires a two-factor authentication mechanism. MUSC further charged that multiple defendants obtained MUSC’s instrument list and emailed it to HCA, as well as attempting to gain patient lists and transmitting case records to HCA. As of November 30, all six physicians mentioned in the lawsuits are expected to leave MUSC.