First few Article Sentences
Hospitals are well aware of the importance of peer review in maintaining quality patient care and compliance with Federal and State quality measures. All 50 states require providers to conduct peer review as a means to ensure patient care standards. Usually, peer review is a confidential process not subject to public disclosure, but that may change if the National Labor Relations Board upholds an administrative law judge’s decision requiring a Kansas hospital to open peer review proceedings and documentation to union representatives.
In Midwest Div.-MMC, LLC (Menorah Medical Center), the hospital notified several nurses that they were to appear before the hospital’s Medication Diversion Prevention Committee as part of separate investigations regarding the nurses’ conduct. The committee was one of several peer review committees the hospital maintained to investigate patient care issues. The hospital’s nursing peer review committee, made up only of nurses, investigated incidents concerning discipline and determined whether a referral to the state board of nursing was required. The nurses, who were in a bargaining unit of other RNs represented by the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Kansas/National Nurses United, requested that a union representative accompany them to their respective peer review committee meetings. The hospital denied their requests, stating that the meetings were closed to all except the targets of the investigation and the committee members. The nurses appeared without union representation and there were no resulting disciplines of either nurse. Following these meetings, the union submitted information requests to the hospital seeking information regarding the makeup of the committees, and the identities and disciplinary records of these and other nurses who were subject to peer review investigation. The hospital denied the union’s requests, stating that “all business conducted in the committee is confidential between the Hospital and the State.”