Diagnostic errors produce the vast majority of medical malpractice suits related to primary-care practice, and it's harder to successfully defend such cases than other types of malpractice suits, according to a report in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Using health information technology to prevent these errors should be a priority, the authors said.
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and other Massachusetts organizations examined malpractice cases handled and closed by the state's two largest medical liability insurers from January 2005 through December 2009. They found 551 (7.7%) cases were primary-care related and, of these, 397 (72.1%) were associated with diagnosis errors.
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Wachter
At the sixth International Conference on Diagnostic Error in Medicine on Wednesday, Dr. Robert Wachter gave a quick history of patient safety and quality improvement but noted that activity to reduce diagnostic errors was noticeably absent from the movement's timeline.
“There's still not a lot of action promoting this agenda,” said Wachter, professor and associate chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. He made the remark after describing events that took place after the Institute of Medicine published “To Err is Human,” its report on medical errors, in 1999.
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California supporters of capping damages in medical malpractice lawsuits have gained an unexpected ally—Planned Parenthood. And that organization is coming under fire for its position on the issue.
Kathy Kneer, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said the state's pain-and-suffering cap has helped protect women's access to obstetricians. “To the extent we have a stable obstetrician provider pool, there is evidence it is working,” she said.
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Medical journals and healthcare publications may soon notice more readers taking deep research dives into their archives looking for old studies, reports and articles on defensive medicine. That's because California's landmark 1975 Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act—which limits pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice lawsuits to $250,000—is coming under fire from two fronts.
The Consumer Watchdog organization and “medical negligence survivors” are working to get the Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act, a ballot initiative, on the November ballot. Named after the children killed in a 2003 accident, the measure would require hospitals to subject physicians to random drug and alcohol testing, require mandatory testing after an unexpected death or serious injury, and adjust the $250,000 cap for inflation. That would raise the cap to $1.1 million. It needs to get about 750,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
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