Boston Globe Calls Attention to Common Good's Health Court Proposal Kristin Eliasberg
Boston Globe, August 21, 2005 In an in-depth article, the Boston Globe calls attention to Common Good's proposal to create special health courts to restore reliability to the medical justice system. The article commends Common Good for its work with the Harvard School of Public Health to promote serious national debate on the issue.
''The health care system is sick," Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard told the Globe. ''It's increasingly unaffordable and erratic--it is infected with distrust and fear of the legal system, and that exacerbates the problems of cost and quality."
Michelle Mello, associate professor of health policy and law at Harvard School of Public Health, said:
''Our hope ... is that if we create a system that isn't focused on negligence and blaming, and acknowledges that things that go wrong are not the fault of individual doctors but rather of whole systems of care that go awry or aren't well designed, doctors would be more willing to talk about errors and to learn from them."
Health courts would help restore fairness and reliability to the medical justice system. The Globe explains how the system would work:
[Health courts] would replace juries composed of average citizens with an administrative panel presided over by judges with some medical expertise, and would replace the dueling expert witnesses paid by each side with 'neutral' experts paid by the court. Instead of rolling the dice in today's system, some injured patients could be automatically reimbursed for lost wages, medical costs, and additional fees without having to prove negligence.
Health courts have strong bi-partisan support, including endorsements by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the Progressive Policy Institute. Recently-introduced Senate legislation that would create pilot projects has received strong endorsements from health care experts and patient-safety advocates.
Click here to read the Boston Globe article.
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