Peer Review Privilege for Hospital's Documents Reviewed

In the case of Gill v. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, No. 180900385 (C.P. Phila. Co. July 19, 2021 Foglietta, J.), the court addressed a Defendant hospital’s appeal of its Discovery Order granting the Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike the hospital’s privilege objections related to hospital documents and powerpoint presentations that were created following an outbreak of a virus in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The Defendants argued that the Peer Review Protection Act and the Medical Care and Availability and Reduction of Error (MCARE) Act served to protect from discovery the documents that the Plaintiff had requested in discovery.

In this Rule 1925 Opinion issued by the trial court, the trial court disagreed with the Defendant’s arguments.

The trial court noted that the creation date and the content of the hospital’s documents at issue indicated that they were not protected by the peer review privilege. The court also noted that the hospital had already disclosed some of the information at issue to third parties, which served to waive any claimed privilege.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.


Source: “Digest of Recent Opinions.” Pennsylvania Law Weekly (Sept. 7, 2021).

Source of image:  Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.com.