UCI May Require Medical Record Access : Scandal: Chancellor’s proposal is aimed at precluding further situations like that at the fertility clinic. A university doctor protests the move as an unprecedented breach of patient confidentiality.

IRVINE —  UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening said Thursday that university physicians may soon be required to open their medical records to some UCI officials upon request, a proposal that drew protest from her audience of about 60 faculty members at UCI’s California College of Medicine.

In an afternoon address to the medical faculty, Wilkening said such a measure is necessary to prevent a recurrence of such “incidents” as the widening fertility scandal.

“We are expecting that everyone who is covered by malpractice insurance by the University of California will provide access to patient records upon request by appropriate university officials,” Wilkening said.

But Dr. Luis De La Maza, a UCI professor of pathology, lambasted the proposal as “unprecedented in the history of medicine,” contending that no one would employ UCI physicians if they knew confidential information in their medical records could be reviewed by non-medical staff.

“I am not sure we are doing the right thing here,” De La Maza said.

Wilkening’s statements came a day after UCI announced that 30 additional patients might have been victimized by improper transfers of human eggs or embryos and that the alleged misconduct might have occurred as early as 1988. The allegations dramatically expanded the scope of the scandal involving three physicians at UCI’s Center for Reproductive Health.

The three, Drs. Ricardo H. Asch, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio C. Stone, are the targets of numerous investigations to determine whether they improperly used patients’ eggs, misappropriated funds and committed research misconduct and insurance fraud.

UCI Executive Vice Chancellor Sidney H. Golub, who also addressed the faculty Thursday, defended Wilkening’s proposal, likening it to the sharing of patient information among physicians and care givers.

“There is no question that the primary owner of the patient’s records is the patient,” Golub said.

When De La Maza asked whether such a policy would require a patient to sign a release indicating that the chancellor of the University of California could look into his or her records, Golub responded: “That may be one way.

“We will look into a variety of ways,” Golub added. “We are talking about a need-to-know basis. And I think the failure to provide records on a need-to-know basis is unacceptable.”

The university contends that the three physicians have hindered the investigations by refusing to turn over patient information. Attorneys for the doctors say patient confidentiality restrictions prevent them from complying, although Asch’s attorneys say they are willing to allow records to be reviewed under the auspices of a court.

Dr. Jonathan Tobis, a professor of medicine and radiology who attended Wilkening’s address, said access to medical records is a legal issue that must be settled by attorneys and policy-makers, not physicians.

In another development Thursday, Balmaceda lashed out at university officials, accusing them of conducting a smear campaign and not being interested in the truth.

UCI “is attempting to destroy my reputation on the basis of well-publicized disinformation,” Balmaceda said in an open letter to his colleagues on the UCI College of Medicine faculty. “The university is not seeking the truth; it is trying to smear me in the media.”

Also on Thursday, Debra Krahel, one of three whistle-blowers whose allegations brought the fertility scandal to light, said she was “overwhelmed” by Wednesday’s announcement by UCI that a total of more than 30 patients might have been victimized by improper transfers of human eggs and embryos, and that seven live births might have resulted.

“The university is now finally conceding that credible evidence may exist to support what has been a concern of mine since I first discovered evidence of the transfer of eggs or embryos from unconsenting donors,” Krahel said at news conference in the office of her Los Angeles attorney, Gloria Allred.

In his letter, Balmaceda accused Krahel and her fellow whistle-blowers, Marilyn Killane and Carol Chatham, of spreading allegations that, according to him, “were not investigated in a fair and impartial manner meeting the standards of due process.”

He criticized the university and its various fact-finding committees for making “no effort to evaluate my individual involvement, if any, in the allegations of the whistle-blowers.”

Balmaceda said most of his work was conducted at the Saddleback Memorial Medical Center and that, unlike his colleagues, he didn’t even own a key to UCI medical facilities routinely used by Asch and Stone, who also deny any knowing misconduct.

“The report of the panel which investigated the clinical allegations found no specific instance of wrongdoing by me individually, and all of their findings related to the UCI center, where I rarely practiced, “ Balmaceda wrote in his letter.

Fran Tardiff, a UCI spokeswoman, said Thursday that the university’s investigations “were fair and conducted in accordance with the law and university policy.” She also sought to refute Balmaceda’s contention that the university made no effort to evaluate his individual involvement as it investigated the scandal.

“Because the physicians failed to provide the logs and records we requested,” Tardiff said, “we were unable to determine the involvement of the physicians--specifically--in each of the allegations. However, the recent documents which we received appear to allege that Dr. Balmaceda was the treating physician on a couple of the cases under investigation.”

Times staff writer Michael G. Wagner contributed to this report.