Introducing a Defendant’s Medical Records in a DWI Trial

I have previously written about how the State may obtain the medical records of a person suspected of or charged with impaired driving. This post focuses on the requirements for admitting those records at trial. Statements (including blood test results) memorialized in a person’s medical records, though hearsay, are admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule if they satisfy the requirements of Rule 803(6). See State v. Miller, 80 N.C. App. 425, 429 (1986) (concluding that results of a blood test contained in medical records were admissible as business records). Given that a patient’s hospital record is “the daily history made in the course of examination, diagnosis and treatment” and “[t]he welfare, even the life of the patient, depends upon the accuracy of the record,” the North Carolina Supreme Court has concluded there is no motive to falsify such records. Sims v. Charlotte Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 257 N.C. 32, 35 (1962). In addition, such records may be more accurate than the independent recollection of the physicians and others who created them. Id. There are three foundational requirements for introducing medical records under the business records exception: 1. The medical record must be made at or near the time of the act, event, condition, opinion, or diagnosis. See Segrest v. Gillette, 96 N.C. App. 435, 440 (1989) (concluding that laboratory slip that was added to the patient’s medical record more than two years after the laboratory test did not “possess the guarantees of trustworthiness sufficient to justify its admission [...]