J.D. The development of peer review is linked to the development of hospitals and the increasing responsibility assigned to hospitals for the quality of care rendered by physicians on the hospital medical staff. Its roots have expanded with the onset of managed care. Peer review now is an important tool in all segments of the health care industry for not just the improvement of quality, but for the reduction of health care costs and protection from liability as well. In an effort to encourage peer review, federal and state legislatures have acted.
Most states have statutes that accord protection in the form of immunity and confidentiality.
The exact nature of the protection, to whom it applies, and the conferring of immunity on those individuals who participate in the peer review process, all depend on the terms of the individual statute and the case law of the jurisdiction. The federal Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 provides immunity from antitrust liability for hospitals, health care entities, and those individuals who participate in a peer review process that meets the due process safeguards of the act. This decision puts Pennsylvania in the middle of the national trend in which state courts have narrowed the confidentiality protections of the peer review process. In this case, the court unanimously allowed a surgeon access to an audiotape of a hospital board meeting held for the purpose of approving a peer review panel's recommendation. The panel was deliberating the physician's conduct during surgery that allegedly went awry, resulting in the summary suspension of his privileges.