Provides relative to peer review of health systems. (8/1/26)

SB 124 amends Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 13, Section 3715.3 to extend peer review confidentiality protections to hospital health systems and to permit intra-system sharing of peer review materials. The bill adds "health system" to the list of medical organizations whose peer review committee records remain confidential and not subject to discovery or court subpoena under existing law. The legislation defines a health system as either a group of two or more hospitals owned, operated, or sponsored by a single entity or subject to common control, or a parent company of hospitals and affiliated entities. The core mechanism establishes that hospitals within the same health system may share peer review information, data, reports, and records with one another exclusively for credentialing, quality review, professional competency assessment, professional conduct evaluation, or patient safety activities as defined by the federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005.

The legislation directly affects hospitals operating within multi-hospital systems, their peer review committees, and healthcare providers subject to those peer review processes. Hospital systems can now facilitate internal quality and credentialing assessments by sharing sensitive peer review materials across constituent hospitals without losing legal protection. Individual healthcare providers may benefit from more comprehensive competency evaluations drawing on multi-hospital data, while also facing greater potential exposure of their performance records within larger organizational structures. Health systems gain operational efficiency in managing quality assurance and professional conduct matters across multiple facilities, though they must restrict peer review sharing strictly to the enumerated purposes and may not use these materials for other business decisions or external disclosures.

The bill operates within Louisiana's existing statutory framework protecting peer review materials from discovery and subpoena, codified in R.S. 13:3715.3. The legislation preserves all existing confidentiality and privilege protections, explicitly providing that intra-system sharing does not constitute a waiver of legal or evidentiary privilege and does not create liability for breach of confidentiality or invasion of privacy. The statute references and incorporates federal standards through the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, aligning Louisiana law with national quality improvement frameworks. The bill maintains the existing liability protections for entities furnishing information to peer review committees and extends those immunities to parties sharing information within health systems pursuant to the new authorization.