Bartow HMA, LLC v. Edwards – July 2015 (Summary)

PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE – EXTERNAL REVIEWS

Bartow HMA, LLC v. Edwards, No. 2D14-3450 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. July 10, 2015)

A district court in Florida found that external peer review reports fell outside of the scope of Amendment 7 of Florida’s constitution. Amendment 7 preempts that state’s peer review protections by allowing patients access to any records related to an adverse medical incident that were “made or received in the course of business.”

In this case, a patient served a hospital with a request to produce peer review documents, including the results of an external peer review that was ordered by the hospital’s attorney, after she was injured during a gallbladder removal surgery. The hospital would not produce the documents, arguing that the reports were not made in the “course of business” but in response to a letter sent by its counsel. The court agreed, holding that the documents were not made or received in the regular course of business under Amendment 7, since hospitals are not required to retain external experts to evaluate adverse outcomes to determine if the standard of care was met.