Effective peer review is a vital link in the delivery of quality medical care in California hospitals. Judicial Review Committee hearings are the highest and most complex process in the peer review system.  For those hearings to achieve the goals of effectiveness and fairness, well-trained and experienced hearing officers are essential.  The CSHA Hearing Officer Committee serves California’s medical-legal community by advancing the training and quality of the pool of hearing officers in California.

This program includes a discussion of important appellate decisions that have come out in the last several years addressing various aspects of peer review law.  It will also include presentations on a variety of topics important to hearing officers, including how to deal with proposed expert witnesses, the legal relationship between the hearing officer and the parties, considerations for some of the motions that may confront a hearing officer, including dispositive motions, and the issues presented when conducting hearings by remote video technology and whether this approach to hearings will endure after the pandemic abates.

We are confident this array of topics will be interesting and educational for everyone who serves as a hearing officer, or who appears before hearing officers as an advocate for a party to a JRC hearing.  We have a terrific panel of highly experienced hearing officers serving as presenters for the program whose experience with JRC hearings collectively substantially exceeds one hundred years.