Patient Safety Must Be the Heart of Medical Malpractice Liability Reform
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) first issued its groundbreaking report where it estimated that 98,000 deaths in the United States occur each year as a result of medical errors. The report also concluded that ninety percent of those errors were attributable to systems issues such as procedural issues and failures in communication. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric that followed, the errors continue. Our political leaders need to focus on fixing the systemic issues through mandatory use of technology and other proven methods and stop blaming individual practioner and their patients who are all victims of the unsafe systems currently in place.
In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, authored by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, they provide suggestions as to how our country can achieve the two key objectives, which are eliminating errors that cause patient's harm and fixing the medical insurance climate for practicing doctors. Clinton and Obama outline four key points: 1) reducing the rates of preventable patient injuries; 2) promoting open communication between physicians and patients; 3) ensuring patients access to fair compensation for legitimate medical injuries; and 4) reducing liability insurance premiums for health care providers.
We need to refocus on the key issues, which are patient safety. If we can make the system safer for the patients and the doctors who practice in the system, while maintaining a fair system of compensation for legitimate injuries then the cost of insurance for the doctors will also be reasonable and everyone wins.
Current arguments advanced by various interested parties, such as the insurance industry, tend to focus on just one aspect of the complex problem. Proposing a solution for only part of the problem is not sufficient. For example, limiting malpractice payments to victims may temporarily ameliorate rising premium rates, but it does nothing to prevent unsafe practices or ensure the provision of fair compensation to patients. To read more about this balanced proposal you can read the entire article and the citations by clicking on the title, Making Patient Safety the Centerpiece of Liability Reform.