14 U.S.C. § 936 — Confidentiality of medical quality assurance records; qualified immunity for participants

(a) Definitions. (1) “Medical quality assurance program” means a Coast Guard activity that assesses medical-care quality, including work by individuals, military medical or dental facility committees, or review bodies handling quality assurance, credentials, infection control, patient-care assessment including procedures, blood, drugs, and therapeutics, medical records, health-resource management, and identification and prevention of medical or dental incidents and risks. (2) “Medical quality assurance record” means proceedings, records, minutes, and reports arising from those activities and produced or compiled by the Coast Guard as part of the program. (3) “Health care provider” means a military or civilian professional given clinical privileges under Secretary regulations to provide care in a military medical or dental facility, or licensed or certified by a government board or agency or professional health-care society or organization. (b) Coast Guard records created by or for the program are confidential and privileged and may be disclosed only as subsection (d) allows. (c)(1) They are not subject to discovery and may not be evidence in a judicial or administrative proceeding except as subsection (d) allows. (2) Except as this section allows, a person who reviews or creates them for the Coast Guard, or participates in a proceeding doing so, may not testify about the records or that person’s related finding, recommendation, evaluation, opinion, or action. (d)(1) Subject to (2), a record may be disclosed and such a person may testify only: (A) to a federal executive agency or private organization when needed to license, accredit, or monitor Coast Guard health-care facilities; (B) in a proceeding brought by a current or former Coast Guard or Coast Guard-assigned Public Health Service provider about ending, suspending, or limiting clinical privileges; (C) to a government board or agency or professional health-care organization when needed for licensing, privileging, or professional-standard monitoring of a current or former Coast Guard or assigned Public Health Service provider; (D) to a hospital, medical center, or other care institution when needed to assess such a provider’s qualifications for authority or employment; (E) to a Coast Guard officer, member, employee, contractor, or assigned Public Health Service person for official purposes; (F) to a criminal or civil law-enforcement agency charged with public-health or safety protection when its qualified representative makes a written request for a legally authorized purpose; or (G) in a proceeding brought by such an agency, only about the proceeding’s subject. (2) Except in a quality-assurance action, before disclosure outside the Coast Guard the record must delete the identity of a Coast Guard health-care recipient and any other agency-associated person identified for program purposes. This does not apply to information released under section 552a of title 5. (e) Unless this section allows it, a person possessing or accessing a covered record or testimony may not disclose its contents. (f) A covered record may not be made available under section 552 of title 5. (g) A participant or information provider is not civilly liable if acting in good faith under professional standards prevailing when the activity occurred. (h) This section does not authorize withholding aggregate program statistics; withholding a record from a House, Senate, or joint congressional committee or the Government Accountability Office when it concerns that body’s jurisdiction; or limiting access to information created and kept outside the program, including a patient’s medical records, merely because it was presented at program review meetings. (i) Unless this section provides otherwise, a person is liable to the United States for a civil penalty if the person willfully discloses a medical quality assurance record while knowing that the record is a medical quality assurance record. The penalty may be up to $3,000 for a first offense and up to $20,000 for a later offense.