In its recent opinion in Pastore v. Samson, the Rhode Island Supreme Court reaffirmed its view that the “peer-review privilege” offers a limited protection to certain information created by properly constituted peer-review boards. The opinion provides useful guidelines as to the type of information that may be protected from disclosure to plaintiffs and other parties seeking information presented at and created by peer-review boards. As will be discussed, the principle message from Pastore is that the peer-review privilege is quite limited, and that physicians and hospitals should be mindful that not everything they may consider as “peer-review privileged” material actually is protected from discovery.
Read the complete article by clicking on the link below.