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Thinking Outside the Jury Box: Another Tort Reform Answer Some legal and health care observers are proposing health courts as a solution to the medical liability crisis.
Mike Norbut
American Medical News, November 14, 2005 A recent article in American Medical News, an AMA publication,
confirms that the idea of health courts as “a solution to today's
much-maligned medical liability system” is “gaining traction in
Congress.” "The idea,” they write, “is to design an efficient,
consistent system with decisions based on scientific evidence rather
than emotion.”
Quoting Philip K. Howard, chair of Common Good, the article
continues that "[m]ost malpractice cases turn on standards of care, not
on disputed facts. . . . There's far less of a need for a
jury than in a fraud case, where you're trying to decide who's telling
the truth. Also, the distrust of the court system by providers is so
universal that I don't think it's possible to restore that trust
without a fairly radical shift."
In a health court system, trained judges, assisted by neutral
experts, would make decisions about whether standards of care have been
breached cases. Their decisions would be housed in a central
database, providing guidance to other judges and consistency to the
system. Also, damages would be paid out according to a schedule,
ensuring prompt and even distribution of compensation to injured
patients.
Building a specialized health court system is “certainly not a new
idea for the legal process,” which has already established special
courts for bankruptcy, tax, and patent disputes. Joe Zumpano, a
health care lawyer in Miami, relates that “America has a history of
special courts” and "[w] hen you look at it, health courts can become a
reality."
Bills that would provide grants to a handful of states to set up
pilot health courts have been introduced in both houses of Congress,
and hearings are expected soon.
Article no longer available online.
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