State Codes and Statutes

Statutes > Nebraska > Chapter71 > 71-2048

71-2048. Communications; privileged; waiver.The proceedings, minutes, records, and reports of any medical staff committee or utilization review committee as defined in section 71-2046, together with all communications originating in such committees are privileged communications which may not be disclosed or obtained by legal discovery proceedings unless (1) the privilege is waived by the patient and (2) a court of record, after a hearing and for good cause arising from extraordinary circumstances being shown, orders the disclosure of such proceedings, minutes, records, reports, or communications. Nothing in sections 71-2046 to 71-2048 shall be construed as providing any privilege to hospital medical records kept with respect to any patient in the ordinary course of business of operating a hospital nor to any facts or information contained in such records nor shall sections 71-2046 to 71-2048 preclude or affect discovery of or production of evidence relating to hospitalization or treatment of any patient in the ordinary course of hospitalization of such patient. SourceLaws 1971, LB 148, § 4. AnnotationsThe language of this section does not protect antecedent reports relating to the care of a specific patient which memorialize bare facts and which were written by or collected from percipient witnesses notwithstanding the fact that such documents may have been forwarded to a hospital-wide committee, nor does this section protect an assembly of such facts outside the committees identified in section 71-2046. Based upon the plain language of this section and reading this section sensibly in conjunction with section 71-2046, which requires the creation of hospital-wide committees, and noting prior case law precedent, it is clear that the proceedings, minutes, records, and reports which are privileged communications under this section are those communications which are part of the deliberations or communications of a hospital-wide medical staff committee or a hospital-wide utilization review committee or such communications which originate in such committees, as those committees are defined under section 71-2046, and when those hospital-wide committees are conducting the business authorized under section 71-2046 et seq. State ex rel. AMISUB, Inc. v. Buckley, 260 Neb. 596, 618 N.W.2d 684 (2000).The party claiming the privileges under section 71-2047 and this section has the burden of proving that the documents claimed as privileged are protected documents under one of those statutes. State ex rel. AMISUB, Inc. v. Buckley, 260 Neb. 596, 618 N.W.2d 684 (2000).This section adopted in 1971 held applicable to pending untried cases and to grant privilege to proceedings of hospital medical staff in absence of showing of extraordinary circumstances. Oviatt v. Archbishop Bergan Mercy Hospital, 191 Neb. 224, 214 N.W.2d 490 (1974).