The Ohio Supreme Court says a health care provider can't limit the release of medical records based solely on where the provider stores the information.
The court ruled 5-2 Wednesday that providers must release all medical records generated in the process of a patient's treatment that pertain to medical history, diagnosis, prognosis or condition.
The court sided with a woman who sued after a Canton hospital declined to provide the complete medical record of her father following his death after surgery.
At issue were cardiac-monitoring strips that were printed after the fact at the direction of the hospital's risk-management department.
Justice Sharon Kennedy said the physical location of data isn't relevant to the question of whether it's a medical record.