§1675 Confidentiality of Medical Quality Assurance Records; Qualified Immunity for Participants

Summary

Keeps records made for medical quality checks by Indian Health programs and urban Indian health programs private. Health care provider — a health worker who has privileges or is employed by those programs and is licensed or certified. Medical quality assurance program — reviews and activities that check and improve medical or dental care (like peer review, infection control, patient safety, records, and incident prevention), done before, on, or after March 23, 2010. Medical quality assurance record — the notes, reports, minutes, and other papers made because of those reviews. These records normally cannot be shared, used in court, or used in official hearings and people who work on them usually cannot be forced to testify about them, except in certain cases. They can be shown when needed for licensing, accreditation, monitoring, or actions about a provider’s clinical privileges; to licensing boards or professional groups checking a provider; to hospitals checking a job applicant; to program staff who need them; or to law enforcement with a written request for public health or safety reasons (and in cases brought by that agency about the same subject). Before sharing, names of patients or others must be removed unless the person is the subject of the review. Aggregate statistics may be shared. Congress or the Government Accountability Office can get relevant records. These records are not available under 5 U.S.C. 552 (FOIA). People who give information in good faith under usual professional standards are protected from civil lawsuits. The Secretary must make rules, redisclosure is limited, the stronger protection applies if this conflicts with the Patient Safety Act, and the rules stay in effect unless a later federal law after March 23, 2010 says otherwise.