Baker, J.
Dr. John Collip had a contractual relationship with Dena Barger, who is a nurse practitioner and owns her own medical practice. Pursuant to their Collaborative Practice Agreement (CPA), Dr. Collip was to collaborate with Barger and oversee her prescriptive authority. Specifically, he was to review at least 5% of her charts on a weekly basis to evaluate her prescriptive practices. On March 30, 2009, Robert Ratts, one of Barger’s patients, died as a partial result of mixed drug intoxication.
Dr. Collip brings this interlocutory appeal challenging the trial court’s order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Vickie Ratts, Ratts’s mother, on her medical malpractice claim. The trial court held as a matter of law that Dr. Collip had a duty to Ratts even though he had never treated Ratts as a patient.
The Indiana General Assembly has enacted a complex and detailed statutory scheme that authorizes nurse practitioners to provide medical services. We infer from the language of the statute that one of the purposes of this legislation was to provide the public with greater access to affordable healthcare. The legislature also sought to ensure the safety of the public by requiring that when prescribing legend drugs, nurse practitioners must be overseen by a licensed physician. We hold as a matter of law that physicians who undertake this responsibility owe a duty to the nurse practitioner’s patients to fulfill their contractual obligations with reasonable care. We affirm and remand.
….
… To put it plainly, we are in no way holding that doctors are the guarantors of the nurse practitioners pursuant to a CPA. We simply hold that doctors have a duty to the patients of the nurse practitioners of reasonable care in fulfilling the doctor’s obligations under the CPA. If a doctor complied with his or her review and oversight obligations—for example, if the physician actually reviews the percentage of charts required by the CPA—and sees nothing troubling, and one of the patients is harmed by the negligence of the nurse practitioner, the doctor has not breached the duty to that patient.
All three of the Webb v. Jarvis factors weigh strongly in favor of the imposition of a duty. Consequently, we hold as a matter of law that a physician who enters into a CPA with a nurse practitioner has a duty of reasonable care to the nurse practitioner’s patients in fulfilling his or her obligations under the CPA.
….
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed and remanded for further proceedings.
Riley, J., and Bailey, J., concur