Powers of Local Team — Limitations — Confidentiality of State and Local Team Records
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The department of health, state team and local teams are public health authorities conducting public health activities pursuant to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), compiled in 42 U.S.C. § 1320d et seq. Notwithstanding §§ 63-2-101(b) and 68-11-1502, and regardless of any express or implied contracts, agreements or covenants of confidentiality based upon those sections, the records of all health care facilities and providers shall be made available to the local team for inspection and copying as necessary to complete the review of a specific fatality and effectuate the intent of this part. The local team is authorized to inspect and copy any other records from any source as necessary to complete the review of a specific fatality and effectuate the intent of this part, including, but not limited to, police investigations data, medical examiner investigative data, vital records cause of death information, and social services records, including records of the department of children's services.
The local team shall not, as part of the review authorized under this part, contact, question or interview the parent of the deceased child or any other family member of the child whose death is being reviewed.
The local team may request that persons with direct knowledge of circumstances surrounding a particular fatality provide the local team with information necessary to complete the review of the particular fatality; such persons may include the person or persons who first responded to a report concerning the child.
Meetings of the state team and each local team shall not be subject to title 8, chapter 44, part 1. Any minutes or other information generated during official meetings of state or local teams shall be sealed from public inspection. However, the state and local teams may periodically make available, in a general manner not revealing confidential information about children and families, the aggregate findings of their reviews and their recommendations for preventive actions.
All otherwise confidential information and records acquired by the state team or any local child fatality review team in the exercise of the duties are confidential, are not subject to discovery or introduction into evidence in any proceedings, and may only be disclosed as necessary to carry out the purposes of the state team or local teams and for the purposes of the Sudden, Unexplained Child Death Act, compiled in chapter 1, part 11 of this title.
In addition, all otherwise confidential information and records created by a local team in the exercise of its duties are confidential, are not subject to discovery or introduction into evidence in any proceedings, and may only be disclosed as necessary to carry out the purposes of the state or local teams and for the purposes of the Sudden, Unexplained Child Death Act. Release to the public or the news media of information discussed at official meetings is strictly prohibited. No member of the state team, a local team nor any person who attends an official meeting of the state team or a local team, may testify in any proceeding about what transpired at the meeting, about information presented at the meeting, or about opinions formed by the person as a result of the meeting.
This subsection (e) shall not, however, prohibit a person from testifying in a civil or criminal action about matters within that person's independent knowledge.
Each statutory member of a local child fatality review team and each non-statutory member of a local team and each person otherwise attending a meeting of a local child fatality review team shall sign a statement indicating an understanding of and adherence to confidentiality requirements, including the possible civil or criminal consequences of any breach of confidentiality.