Ohio Code 2305.24 – Information furnished to quality assurance or utilization committee to be confidential
Any information, data, reports, or records made available to a quality assurance committee or utilization committee of a hospital or long-term care facility or of any not-for-profit health care corporation that is a member of the hospital or long-term care facility or of which the hospital or long-term care facility is a member are confidential and shall be used by the committee and the committee members only in the exercise of the proper functions of the committee. Any information, data, reports, or records made available to a utilization committee of a state or local medical society composed of doctors of medicine or doctors of osteopathic medicine are confidential and shall be used by the committee and the committee members only in the exercise of the proper functions of the committee. A right of action similar to that a patient may have against an attending physician for misuse of information, data, reports, or records arising out of the physician-patient relationship shall accrue against a member of a quality assurance committee or utilization committee for misuse of any information, data, reports, or records furnished to the committee by an attending physician. No physician, institution, hospital, or long-term care facility furnishing information, data, reports, or records to a committee with respect to any patient examined or treated by the physician or confined in the institution, hospital, or long-term care facility shall, by reason of the furnishing, be deemed liable in damages to any person, or be held to answer for betrayal of a professional confidence within the meaning and intent of section 4731.22 of the Revised Code. Information, data, or reports furnished to a utilization committee of a state or local medical society shall contain no name of any person involved therein.
Terms Used In Ohio Code 2305.24
- Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Person: includes an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, and association. See Ohio Code 1.59
- state: means the state of Ohio. See Ohio Code 1.59
Any information, data, reports, or records made available to a quality assurance committee of the bureau of workers’ compensation or the industrial commission that is responsible for reviewing the professional qualifications and the performance of providers conducting medical examinations or file reviews for the bureau or the commission are confidential and shall be used by the committee and the committee members only in the exercise of the proper functions of the committee.
As used in this section, “utilization committee” is the committee established to administer a utilization review plan of a hospital, of a not-for-profit health care corporation which is a member of the hospital or of which the hospital is a member, or of a skilled nursing facility as provided in the “Health Insurance for the Aged Act,” 79 Stat. 313 (1965), 42 U.S.C. § 1395x(k).