Tibbs v. Bunnell (Summary)

PSQIA

Tibbs v. Bunnell, No. 2012-SC-000603-MR (Ky. Aug. 21, 2014)

The Supreme Court of Kentucky reversed a decision issued by the state’s Court of Appeals regarding the disclosure of a surgical nurse’s post-incident event report. The incident report was requested as part of a medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of a deceased patient.

The medical malpractice action concerned an elective spine surgery performed at the University of Kentucky Hospital. The patient died due to complications from the surgery; later that day, a surgical nurse at the hospital generated a post-incident event report. When the patient’s estate requested peer review and incident reports related to the death, the physicians argued that the surgical nurse’s report was protected by the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (“PSQIA”). The PSQIA is a federal statute that protects information reported to patient safety organizations for the purposes of quality improvement and patient safety.

The Court of Appeals ruled that the PSQIA only protects documents employing a “self-examining analysis,” and had ordered the circuit court to review the surgical nurse’s report in order to see whether it was protected by the law. The Supreme Court of Kentucky reversed this decision, ruling that the nurse’s incident report was not protected by the PSQIA because its collection, creation, maintenance, and utilization was mandated by Kentucky law as part of its oversight of healthcare facilities. The Supreme Court of Kentucky concluded that information normally contained in an incident report is not privileged under the PSQIA.