Credit: Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Adobe Stock
The family of a child with cerebral palsy went to the Florida Supreme Court in a dispute involving a 2004 constitutional amendment designed to force hospitals and other health providers to disclose records.
Jade and Justin Wiles filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, alleging that their child’s cerebral palsy stemmed from a birth injury or from treatment he received at the hospital, according to a November ruling by a panel of the First District Court of Appeal.
As part of that case, they sought “incident reports” from the hospital under the 2004 amendment. But the hospital fought turning over what is described as a “safety event report” that an employee created 12 days after the child was born.
The appeals court panel, in a 2-1 decision, sided with the hospital but also urged the Supreme Court to take up the case.
The family recently filed an initial notice that is a first step in asking the Supreme Court to hear the dispute, according to court dockets.
The case involves the interplay of the state constitutional amendment and a 2005 federal law. That law allows hospitals to voluntarily submit information about medical errors to what are known as “patient safety organizations,” and offers certain confidentiality protections.
The law was aimed, at least in part, at encouraging health providers to submit information that could be analyzed and used to prevent future medical errors.
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