In The News

One photograph. One moment. A lifetime of expertise.

CLEVELAND, OHIO — The photograph is stark. Black and white. No distractions.

Attorney Susan Petersen sits at her desk, eyes fixed on a computer screen, the pillars of the U.S. Supreme Court visible in the background. She’s conducting a virtual inspection of a deceased patient’s electronic medical records with her expert, who is staring at the same screen in another state.

The image captures something most people never see: the painstaking work of seeking truth in the digital shadows of healthcare. This is what the pursuit of justice looks like in 2026.

Not a courtroom. Not a closing argument. Not the moment of victory.

An attorney, a screen, and thousands of lines of data that might reveal what really happened to someone’s mother, father, grandmother—someone who trusted a system that may have failed them.

This is Petersen & Petersen.

The Truth Has a Timestamp

The case involves the wrongful death of a woman at Broadview Multicare Center (also known as Broadview Nursing Home) in Broadview Heights, owned by DMD Management Inc., doing business as Legacy Health Services.  Legacy Health Services operates multiple facilities across Ohio, including Broadview Multicare, Cedarwood Plaza, Franklin Plaza, Hillside Plaza, Mapleview Country Villa, Orchard Villa, Parkside Villa, Pleasant Lake Villa, Pleasantview Care Center, and Wickliffe Country Place.

According to the lawsuit filed in Cuyahoga County, she entered the facility in January 2024 needing nursing care and rehabilitation following a UTI. She required careful monitoring of her blood thinners. She was at risk for pressure ulcers due to limited mobility. Over the next seven weeks, the complaint alleges, she deteriorated. Pressure ulcers developed and worsened. Gastrointestinal complications emerged. Signs of infection appeared.  In March—just one day before her transfer—a Cleveland Clinic telehealth nurse practitioner conducted a virtual visit that allegedly failed to properly assess her declining condition.

The next day, she was finally transferred to a hospital. Twenty-four hours later, she was dead. Sepsis. Multisystem organ failure.

Somewhere in the digital records of her care is the truth about what happened—and what didn’t.

When History Echoes

Susan Petersen has sat in this chair before. Staring at screens. Hunting for timestamps. Following digital breadcrumbs through electronic medical records.

Years ago, it was Mapleview Country Villa in Chardon—another Legacy Health Services facility. Different patient. Same devastating outcome.

In that case, the nursing home fought Petersen & Petersen’s requests for complete electronic medical records with every legal tool available.

The Petersens fought back—all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. But before it reached that high, a Cuyahoga County judge had seen enough.

After the court ordered the defendants to produce the patients’ electronic medical records’ audit trail information, they produced nothing. At a hearing on the Petersens’ Motion to Show Cause, the evidence was clear: the facility could provide the data “by clicking a few buttons.”

The trial court’s Sanctions Order was unequivocal:

“The Court is not persuaded by Defendants’ interpretation that the Court’s order does not apply to them because they do not maintain audit trail information in the ordinary course of business. The evidence showed that Defendants maintained facility-level audit trail information electronically and that it could provide the information in printed form to Plaintiff’s counsel by clicking a few buttons… The Court finds Defendants… in contempt and imposes the following: $1,000 for each day after June 28, 2021, for the first five days and $5,000 a day thereafter for Defendants’ failure to provide audit trail information as requested.”

Within days: 1,145 pages of audit trail data they’d claimed didn’t exist.  When they finally obtained the complete audit trail through court-ordered inspection, the Petersens discovered why the facility had fought so hard.  A Fall Risk Care Plan in the patient’s chart was dated August 28, appearing to show safety protocols were in place.

But the “Created On” timestamp revealed the document was generated after the patient had been discharged. After she had died.

As the Petersens documented to the trial court: “The Fall Risk care plan was backdated to make it look as though it was in place during her residency! It failed to include ANY interventions because it didn’t exist.”   A fabricated record.

Corporate Memory

This week’s virtual inspection required no court order. No contempt motion. No appellate battles.  Same corporate entity—DMD Management Inc./Legacy Health Services.

They remember.

They remember the contempt finding. They remember the order for daily fines at Mapleview. They remember what was uncovered. They probably read the article Susan published that attorneys nationwide now use.  They know that when Petersen & Petersen requests electronic medical records, they mean complete records. Unredacted audit trails. Every timestamp.

This is accountability earned the hard way.

The Complete Picture

The day after Susan’s inspection, partner Todd Petersen was deposing a Cleveland Clinic Connected Care telehealth nurse practitioner who had been involved in the patient’s care. His questions probed modern healthcare’s architecture: How do the Cleveland Clinic’s telehealth records interface with the nursing home’s EMR system? What information transfers between platforms? What doesn’t? When the nurse practitioner documented her assessments, where did that documentation live? Did the nursing home staff see it in real time? Could they?  Because in modern medicine, truth doesn’t live in one place.

It lives across hospitals and nursing homes, telehealth platforms and databases, in system connections—and in gaps where information falls through.

Most attorneys don’t ask these questions.  Most don’t know these questions exist.

It’s All in the Details

Justice in the digital age lives in the details.  In line 847 of 1,145 pages. In recognizing when a “Created On” date doesn’t match a discharge date. In knowing EMR systems must maintain audit trails per federal regulation 45 CFR §170.315(d)(3). In citing ASTM E2147-18—the federally adopted standard.  In being willing to fight through contempt proceedings, sanctions orders, two appellate courts, and the Ohio Supreme Court if necessary. Most attorneys stop at the first objection.

The Petersens cite federal law. Get sanctions orders when evidence is wrongfully withheld. Win appellate decisions. Establish precedent. Because the truth is in the data—if you know how to find it and fight for it.

The Questions That Matter

For attorneys: Do you want to hire a co-counsel who requests complete audit trails as standard practice? Who understands EMR systems and system interfaces? Who has successfully fought through contempt proceedings and appeals? Who has uncovered backdated documents that changed everything?

For families: Will your attorney find the truth if it’s hidden in digital records? Will they fight even when providers claim records don’t exist—and keep fighting through contempt findings and daily fines if necessary?

What Sets Them Apart

Susan Petersen: Founding Member, Health Access and Records Protection (HARP) Institute • IEEE Standards Association Global EHR Data Quality Workgroup • Board of Governors, International Society of Barristers (National Membership Co-Chair) • ABOTA member

Her article, “Overcoming Objections to Production of a Complete and Unredacted Audit Trail,” is used by attorneys nationwide.

Todd and Susan Petersen: 2024 Ohio Association for Justice J. Thomas Henretta Distinguished Advocate Award • Over $65 million in settlements and verdicts • $17 million settlement.   Their work on Paganini v. Cataract Eye Center—pending before the Ohio Supreme Court—successfully challenged Ohio’s catastrophic injury damages cap, reshaping Ohio tort law.

The real story is told in that photograph.  There are so many snapshots like that one that tell the story that nobody sees—not even their clients.

“Know the Law. Know Your Client’s Rights. Work Hard to Protect Both.”

This week embodied it: Susan conducting an inspection that once required contempt findings and years of litigation—now granted without a fight because Legacy Health Services learned the hard way. Todd deposing a telehealth nurse practitioner to understand how systems interfaced—or failed to.  Both doing work most attorneys don’t know how to do. Both following truth wherever the digital trail leads.

Because somewhere in those electronic medical records is the answer: What really happened to someone we loved?

This is justice in the digital age.

This is Petersen & Petersen.

 

Read the groundbreaking article

When digital truth matters, experience matters more.  We will not be silent.