By:  Maxey                                            H.B. No. 1424
       73R6072 E
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  clarifying certain definitions in the Medical Practice Act.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 1.03(6), Medical Practice Act (Article
    1-5  4495b, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as
    1-6  follows:
    1-7              (6)  "Medical peer review committee" or "professional
    1-8  review body" means a committee of a health-care entity, the
    1-9  governing board of a health-care entity, or the medical staff of a
   1-10  health-care entity, provided the committee or medical staff
   1-11  operates pursuant to written bylaws that have been approved by the
   1-12  policy-making body or the governing board of the health-care entity
   1-13  and authorized to evaluate the quality of medical and health-care
   1-14  services or the competence of physicians, including those functions
   1-15  specified by Section 85.204, Health and Safety Code.  Such a
   1-16  committee includes the employees and agents of the committee,
   1-17  including assistants, investigators, intervenors, attorneys, and
   1-18  any other persons or organizations that serve the committee in any
   1-19  capacity.
   1-20        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
   1-21        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-22  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-23  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-24  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-1  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.