General Principles of the Peer Review for Health Care Employees

General Principles of the Peer Review for Health Care Employees

Understand the peer review process and how it is used to ensure critical information remains protected from discovery. Most medical institutions believe that the confidential review of a negative patient experience or event for purposes of quality improvement will be protected from discovery in a subsequently filed civil lawsuit. However, a hospital’s administration may unknowingly waive the peer review privilege if certain safeguards are not in place. This topic helps hospital administrators and health care professionals understand what the peer review process is and how it should be undertaken to ensure that their confidential reviews and recommended changes following a serious medical event remain private, and not used against them in patient lawsuits. The topic will provide best practices and legal defenses for information that patient lawyers seek in every lawsuit—an admission of liability. Failing to know the issues prospectively only increases the chance that a health care provider waives an otherwise potent legal argument against disclosure. This information is critical for all health care providers, administrators and health risk management professionals so that they can ensure that critical information that is ordinarily protected from discovery remains so in medical professional liability cases.