Haines v. Cherian — Feb. 2016 (Summary)

PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE & MCARE

Haines v. Cherian
Civil No. 1:15-cv-00513 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 29, 2016)

A medical negligence action before the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania was brought against a physician and others employed by a medical center.  In the suit, a pregnant woman alleged that she was misdiagnosed with a pulmonary embolus when she was a patient at the medical center.  In fact, she just had the flu.  As a result of the misdiagnosis, the woman was improperly treated with a blood thinner that caused internal hemorrhaging and severe brain damage to her gestating twins.  During discovery, the patient requested incident reports, investigative notes, memoranda, correspondence, and adverse event letters.  A dispute arose over the production of these documents.

The medical center argued that the requested documents are protected from discovery by the Pennsylvania Peer Review Protection Act (“PRPA”) and the Pennsylvania Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act (“MCARE”).  The court noted that MCARE protection applies only if the documents were created solely for the purpose of compliance with the MCARE Act’s serious events reporting requirements, if the documents arise out of matters reviewed by the patient safety committee and if the documents are not otherwise available from original sources.  The court further noted that if the investigation of the incident was not commenced at the request of or by the Patient Safety Committee, the confidentiality protections would not apply.  Similarly, PRPA protection would apply only to records used or produced during the peer review process that were not available from original sources.

The court held that confidential e-mails and other information which was subject to the Quality Care Review Committee’s responsibilities were protected from discovery.  However, other documents which “were not solely subject to the purpose of MCARE Act or PRPA compliance” were not protected.  The court did not require the production of documents related to an article published by a resident because the request was overly broad.  The court did order the production of all documents made, received and reviewed by an involved physician relating to a CT scan because the defense did not present any valid statutory protection for these relevant documents.