CHAPTER 507

An Act to permit physicians to disclose certain information in connection
with the conduct of certain medical studies, to provide for the confi-
dential nature of such information in the hands of those conducting
the study, and to protect the anonymity of the patient and physician
concerned.

[H 422]

Approved March 31, 1960

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. §1. Any practitioner of the healing arts may permit an authorized
representative of the State Department of Health, hereinafter referred to
as the Department, to examine and review any medical records which he
has in his possession or to which he has access which relate to the death of
a patient, when the Department requests such authority in the course of a
medical study for the purpose of reducing mortality, and such physician
and the custodian of such records shall not be liable in any action at law
for permitting such examination and review.

§ 2. The Department shall not divulge the contents of such records or
of any individual reports it may make in connection therewith except that
information pertinent to the study may be divulged to a committee of a
recognized medical society with which such study is being jointly made,
and such information shall be deemed to be confidential and privileged in
the hands of the Department and such committee and shall not be used in
evidence in any action at law.

§ 3. In furnishing the information so obtained to such committee and
in publishing any reports of the study, the Department shall preserve the
anonymity of the patient and physician involved, except that the physician
shall be informed of the preparation of any such report by the Depart-
ment or by the committee and shall be furnished a copy of it upon request.