Bill Text: IL SB1821 | 2009-2010 | 96th General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Amends the Hospital Licensing Act. Makes a technical change in a Section concerning protection of and confidential access to medical records and information.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Republican 1)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2009-02-20 - Referred to Assignments [SB1821 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2009-SB1821-Introduced.html

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96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2009 and 2010 SB1821 Introduced 2/20/2009, by Sen. David Luechtefeld SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
210 ILCS 85/6.17
Amends the Hospital Licensing Act. Makes a technical change in a Section concerning protection of and confidential access to medical records and information.
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A BILL FOR
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AN ACT concerning regulation.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Hospital Licensing Act is amended by
changing Section 6.17 as follows:
(210 ILCS 85/6.17)
Sec. 6.17. Protection of and confidential access to medical
records and information.
(a) Every hospital licensed under this this Act shall
develop a medical record for each of its patients as required
by the Department by rule.
(b) All information regarding a hospital patient gathered
by the hospital's medical staff and its agents and employees
shall be the property and responsibility of the hospital and
must be protected from inappropriate disclosure as provided in
this Section.
(c) Every hospital shall preserve its medical records in a
format and for a duration established by hospital policy and
for not less than 10 years, provided that if the hospital has
been notified in writing by an attorney before the expiration
of the 10 year retention period that there is litigation
pending in court involving the record of a particular patient
as possible evidence and that the patient is his client or is

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the person who has instituted such litigation against his
client, then the hospital shall retain the record of that
patient until notified in writing by the plaintiff's attorney,
with the approval of the defendant's attorney of record, that
the case in court involving such record has been concluded or
for a period of 12 years from the date that the record was
produced, whichever occurs first in time.
(d) No member of a hospital's medical staff and no agent or
employee of a hospital shall disclose the nature or details of
services provided to patients, except that the information may
be disclosed to the patient, persons authorized by the patient,
the party making treatment decisions, if the patient is
incapable of making decisions regarding the health services
provided, those parties directly involved with providing
treatment to the patient or processing the payment for that
treatment, those parties responsible for peer review,
utilization review or quality assurance, risk management, or
defense of claims brought against the hospital arising out of
the care, and those parties required to be notified under the
Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act, the Illinois Sexually
Transmissible Disease Control Act, or where otherwise
authorized or required by law.
(e) The hospital's medical staff members and the hospital's
agents and employees may communicate, at any time and in any
fashion, with legal counsel for the hospital concerning the
patient medical record privacy and retention requirements of

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this Section and any care or treatment they provided or
assisted in providing to any patient within the scope of their
employment or affiliation with the hospital.
(e-5) Notwithstanding subsections (d) and (e), for actions
filed on or after January 1, 2004, after a complaint for
healing art malpractice is served upon the hospital or upon its
agents or employees, members of the hospital's medical staff
who are not actual or alleged agents, employees, or apparent
agents of the hospital may not communicate with legal counsel
for the hospital or with risk management of the hospital
concerning the claim alleged in the complaint for healing art
malpractice against the hospital except with the patient's
consent or in discovery authorized by the Code of Civil
Procedure or the Supreme Court rules. For the purposes of this
subsection (e-5), "hospital" includes a hospital affiliate as
defined in subsection (b) of Section 10.8 of this Act.
(f) Each hospital licensed under this Act shall provide its
federally designated organ procurement agency and any tissue
bank with which it has an agreement with access to the medical
records of deceased patients for the following purposes:
(1) estimating the hospital's organ and tissue
donation potential;
(2) identifying the educational needs of the hospital
with respect to organ and tissue donation; and
(3) identifying the number of organ and tissue
donations and referrals to potential organ and tissue

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donors.
(g) All hospital and patient information, interviews,
reports, statements, memoranda, and other data obtained or
created by a tissue bank or federally designated organ
procurement agency from the medical records review described in
subsection (f) shall be privileged, strictly confidential, and
used only for the purposes put forth in subsection (f) of this
Section and shall not be admissible as evidence nor
discoverable in an action of any kind in court or before a
tribunal, board, agency, or person.
(h) Any person who, in good faith, acts in accordance with
the terms of this Section shall not be subject to any type of
civil or criminal liability or discipline for unprofessional
conduct for those actions under any professional licensing
statute.
(i) Any individual who wilfully or wantonly discloses
hospital or medical record information in violation of this
Section is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. As used in this
subsection, "wilfully or wantonly" means a course of action
that shows an actual or deliberate intention to cause harm or
that, if not intentional, shows an utter indifference to or
conscious disregard for the safety of others or their property.
(j) The changes to this Section made by this amendatory Act
of the 93rd General Assembly apply to any action filed on or
after January 1, 2004.
(Source: P.A. 93-492, eff. 1-1-04.)