Patients Rights to Adverse Medical Incident Reports

In 2004, FL Constitutional Amendment 7 passed (Patient Right to Know About Adverse Medical Incidents), giving patients the right to discovery adverse medical incident reports. Before voters passed the amendment, these adveres reports were shrouded in secrecy and patients could not access them — even in a lawsuit. But Amen breadth and application were blocked by subsequent legislation. However, in 2007 the Fl Supreme Court overturned the legislation. Still, the opinion left some room for argument. But the walls have been coming down since two subsequent appellate decisions. In a wrongful death malpractice case involving a kidney center, P& D recently obtained the incident reports for the malpractice event in question. After the defense asserted that the incident reports only demonstrated routine medical procedure, P&D obtained a 2009 court order forcing the defendant to disclose all incident reports so that the defense could be challenged. At P&D, we believe in the patients right to know. Further, we believe that truth should never be hidden. It is upon the search for truth that our judicial system has been founded.