§ 63-6-228 — Community health management information systems

(a) This section shall be known and may be cited as the "Tennessee Community Health Management Information System Law of 1993." (b) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires: (1) "Collected data" means health care data consisting of all information, interviews or other reports, statements, memoranda or other information furnished from all sources and in whatever form to the quality assessment committee, together with the records, reports, proceedings and other information used by the quality assessment committee to reach its conclusions in the form of releasable data as defined in this section; (2) "Community health management information system (CHMIS)" means any broad based organization, including, but not limited to, providers of health care goods and services, payors for health care goods and services, including insurors and employers, and users of health care goods and services, whose goal is to monitor and improve the level of community wellness and the quality of health care rendered by providers of health care delivery services and the financial reimbursement systems in a county having a population in excess of eight hundred thousand (800,000), according to the 1990 federal census or any subsequent federal census; (3) "Quality assessment committee" means a committee of a CHMIS consisting primarily of physicians and other providers of health care, with insurors and employers, whose purpose is to collect, analyze and refine health care data as part of the CHMIS; and (4) "Releasable data" means summaries and conclusions of collected data of the quality assessment committee determined by such quality assessment committee to be scientifically valid and formally delivered to the quality executive committee to achieve the purposes of the CHMIS. (c) It is the stated policy of Tennessee to encourage each CHMIS to candidly, conscientiously and objectively monitor and improve the level of community wellness and quality of health care delivery services and financial reimbursement systems. Tennessee further recognizes that confidentiality is essential both to effective functioning of the CHMIS and to continued improvement in the access to, the efficiency of and the quality of health care services. As incentive for the providers, payors and users of health care services to participate in a quality assessment committee, such quality assessment committee must be protected from liability for its good faith efforts. To this end, a quality assessment committee of a CHMIS should be granted certain immunities relating to its actions undertaken as part of its responsibility to collect, analyze and refine health care data. In instances of a quality assessment committee examining the appropriateness of physicians' fees, this immunity must also extend to restraint of trade claims under title 47, chapter 25. (d) (1) All health care professional associations and societies and other organizations, including insurors and employers, institutions, foundations, entities and associated communities as identified in subsection (c), physicians, registered nurses, hospitals, hospital administrators and employees, members of boards of directors or trustees of any publicly supported or privately supported hospital or other such provider of health care, any person acting as a staff member of a quality assessment committee of a CHMIS, any person under a contract or other formal agreement with a quality assessment committee of a CHMIS, any person who participates with or assists a quality assessment committee of a CHMIS with respect to its functions or any other individual appointed to any quality assessment committee as such term is described in subsection (b) shall be immune from liability to any patient, individual or organization for furnishing information, data, reports or records to any such quality assessment committee or for damages resulting from any decision, opinions, actions and proceedings rendered, entered or acted upon by a quality assessment committee undertaken or performed within the scope or function of the duties of such quality assessment committees, if made or taken in good faith and without malice and on the basis of facts reasonably known or reasonably believed to exist. (2) Notwithstanding subdivision (d)(1), any person providing information to a quality assessment committee of a CHMIS regarding the analysis and refinement of health care data shall be immune from liability to any person, unless such information is false and the person providing it had actual knowledge of such falsity. (e) All collected data of the CHMIS are declared to be privileged and shall not be public records nor be available for court subpoena or for discovery proceedings. The CHMIS, through a quality executive committee or similar committee, shall establish particular categories of health care data and refinement periods for each category of health care data, whether such data is collected data or releasable data. Releasable data shall be subject to the privileges and limitations of collected data for refinement periods as determined by the quality executive committee. When the refinement period has expired for a particular category of releasable data, then such immunities and privileges set forth in this subsection (e) shall no longer apply to the releasable data for such category. The disclosure of confidential, privileged quality assessment committee information to original sources during the refinement period, or as a report by the quality assessment committee to the quality executive committee, the CHMIS board of directors or another executive committee within the CHMIS, prior to the expiration of the refinement period does not constitute either a waiver of confidentiality or privilege. Nothing contained in this subsection (e) applies to records made in the regular course of business by a hospital or other provider of health care and information, documents or records otherwise available from original sources are not to be construed as immune from discovery or use in any civil proceedings merely because they were presented during the refinement period of the quality assessment committee.

Legislative History

Acts 1993, ch. 333, § 1.