(a) Certificates of accreditation issued to outpatient settings by an accreditation agency shall be valid for not more than three years.
(b) The outpatient setting shall notify the accreditation agency within 30 days of any significant change in ownership, including, but not limited to, a merger, change in majority interest, consolidation, name change, change in scope of services, additional services, or change in locations.
(c) Except for disclosures to the division or to the Division of Medical Quality under this chapter, an accreditation agency shall not disclose information obtained in the performance of accreditation activities under this chapter that individually identifies patients, individual medical practitioners, or outpatient settings. Neither the proceedings nor the records of an accreditation agency or the proceedings and records of an outpatient setting related to performance of quality assurance or accreditation activities under this chapter shall be subject to discovery, nor shall the records or proceedings be admissible in a court of law. The prohibition relating to discovery and admissibility of records and proceedings does not apply to any outpatient setting requesting accreditation in the event that denial or revocation of that outpatient setting’s accreditation is being contested. Nothing in this section shall prohibit the accreditation agency from making discretionary disclosures of information to an outpatient setting pertaining to the accreditation of that outpatient setting.
(Added by Stats. 1994, Ch. 1276, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 1995.)