Is Med Liability Shield Necessary?

To cut down on medical errors by healthcare providers, we needto know when errors take place and why. But how can you expectpeople to report their own mistakes if the result is a malpracticesuit filed against them?

That is the conundrum facing Congress as a bill is debated thatwould exempt someone from a malpractice suit if they report medicalerrors voluntarily to help improve the quality of care and bolsterpatient safety.

Proponents of S. 2590 say that this is the only way to get ahandle on the tens-of-thousands of medical errors being made today.The goal, these supporters say, is to allow everyone to learn fromthe industry's mistakes. Neil Trautwein, director of employmentpolicy for the National Association of Manufacturers, argues thatprotecting healthcare workers from “rampant medical malpracticelitigation” will more effectively unearth medical errors and avoidfuture mistakes.

While this bill would be an insurance company or risk manager'sdream come true, it is going to be a hard sell, and rightfully so.It is important to encourage healthcare facilities to record theirmistakes so that we can get a true picture of what's wrong with thesystem and take steps to fix it. However, should doctors andhospitals who make serious mistakes that hurt patients be able toshield themselves from malpractice suits simply by 'fessing up?That's a stretch.

Congress is going to have to see a more detailed cost-benefitanalysis before signing off on this particular piece of tort reformlegislation. We need reliable data on medical errors, but we alsoneed a system that fairly compensates victims of malpractice. Asystem that fails to accomplish both does not deserve to be passedinto law.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property &Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, June 17, 2002.Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serialpublication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as anindependent work may be held by the author.