A shift toward limiting the privilege afforded to health care providers by the Peer Review Protection Act has placed a heightened burden on doctors and hospitals attempting to keep internal discussions from being used as evidence in medical malpractice litigation, attorneys said.

As a result, health care professionals and their counsel are engaged in a fight to “protect the protection” amid doubts about the continued utility of the peer-review process and the act that shields it from plaintiffs, lawyers said.

“[PRPA] immunities are going to become increasingly irrelevant,” said Clifford A. Rieders, a medical malpractice plaintiffs attorney at Rieders, Travis, Humphrey, Waters & Dohrmann. “It's inconsistent and incompatible with modern patient safety and with the network structure providing medical care.”