Last Updated: Nov 10, 2021

The Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED), in conjunction with the American Medical Association (AMA), has filed a friend of the court brief (“amicus brief”) with the Eastern District of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in the case of Gill et al. v. the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

The case concerns a 2016 adenovirus outbreak in CHOP’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ("NICU"). Following the outbreak, CHOP conducted an intensive patient safety investigation to determine the outbreak’s cause. Several patients and their families affected by the outbreak filed professional liability suits against CHOP. The case at issue is an appeal of three such suits filed in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. The appeal concerns whether certain documents withheld by CHOP in discovery are privileged materials and subject to confidentiality protections under Pennsylvania law.

The trial court ruled that virtually all documents that CHOP withheld from discovery were discoverable in three different professional liability lawsuits, despite that the documents themselves had never been published and are protected by the peer review privilege of the Peer Review Protection Act (PRPA) and the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act ("MCARE Act").

The amicus brief stresses the importance of upholding the PRPA’s peer review confidentiality protections. The brief emphasizes that the PRPA establishes a framework for professional health care providers to evaluate the professional competence of their peers, improve the quality of health care, reduce morbidity and mortality, and reduce the cost of health care. This framework, however, would collapse without an assurance of confidentiality, the cornerstone of a sound peer review process. The brief also argues that the documents withheld by CHOP are privileged under the MCARE Act’s confidentiality protections for materials arising out of matters reviewed by a hospital’s patient safety committee.

The brief can be accessed here.

The Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians joined PAMED and the AMA in filing the brief. PAMED thanks the AMA for its assistance and support.

PAMED will continue to monitor the case for additional developments and update members accordingly.