A deeply split Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that peer review documents are only covered under the Peer Review Protection Act if they are generated by organizations that are regulated by the state to operate in the health care industry.

In Reginelli v. Boggs, the justices ruled 4-3 to affirm an unpublished state Superior Court decision that said peer review documents generated by Emergency Resource Management Inc., an outside contractor to Monongahela Valley Hospital, were subject to disclosure in a medical malpractice case because ERMI was “not an entity enumerated in the [PRPA] as being protected by peer review privilege.”