Ohio § 2305.24

§ 2305.24.

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. 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) .