A patient has filed a bill of discovery against Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare Corporation, seeking a court order forcing the health system to identify an employee who allegedly accessed her medical records without authorization, access she claims is tied to confidential health information that later appeared on a social media account.
Damira Cooke’s complaint, filed in August in Connecticut Superior Court, says she learned in May 2025 that content purporting to show her medical records had appeared on a social media account whose owner she could not identify. The discovery prompted her to audit her own record-access history at Hartford Hospital, where she had undergone an imaging procedure on May 8, 2025.
That audit led to a Hartford HealthCare investigation, which confirmed in a June 19, 2025, letter that an employee had accessed Ms. Cooke’s electronic health record on May 13, 2025, for a reason unrelated to her care, according to the bill of discovery, a preliminary legal action used to gather information before filing a lawsuit. The accessed information purportedly included her name, date of birth, home address, phone number, email address, medical record number and appointment history.
Ms. Cooke’s attorney sent Hartford HealthCare a written request in May 2026 asking it to name the employee under federal patient-privacy disclosure rules. Hartford HealthCare did not respond, according to the complaint, prompting Ms. Cooke to file the bill of discovery seeking a court order compelling disclosure of the employee’s identity and related records.
A Hartford HealthCare spokesperson did not address specific questions about the incident, providing only a general statement to Becker’s: “Patient safety and privacy remain our highest priorities. Due to privacy laws and pending litigation, we are unable to comment at this time.”
Court records show an in-person status conference is scheduled for Sept. 10 before Judge Lisa Kelly Morgan.
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