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Washington State Looking Towards Health Courts "States tackle issue from all angles" and "Losing the patient"
Brad Shannon; Nina Shapiro
The Olympain; Seattle Weekly, March 1, 2006 After the recent failure of two malpractice reform initiatives, one supported by lawyers and the other by doctors, and despite a compromise malpractice bill recently brokered by the state’s governor, Christine Gregoire, Washingtonians are increasingly looking towards health courts as a more complete solution to the state’s broken medical malpractice system – one that will benefit both providers and patients alike. In a recent piece for The Olympian, Brad Shannon describes health courts as a reform idea that “[has] gained traction.” He writes that health courts were recently discussed by Mary-Lou Misrahy, an executive with Seattle’s Physicians Insurance, “as one of several possible solutions to consider.” “She noted that most victims of malpractice never get their cases into court under the fee-driven system that prevails today.” And in a piece for the Seattle Weekly, Nina Shapiro writes that Randy Revelle, a senior vice president for the Washington State Hospital Association, shows “no inclination” to again fight for caps in future reform debates. “‘I personally became convinced over the last six months that trying to fix the current system isn't going to solve the problem,’” she quotes him as saying. “‘We need to go to a new system.’” Shapiro writes that Revelle is “working on a proposal for dramatic reform that would increase patient safety and compensate greater numbers of malpractice victims without them entering the tort system.” He is studying the work of Michelle Mello, a Harvard School of Public Health professor who, along with her colleagues, is working with Common Good to design a system of health courts.
The Olympian article is no longer available online.
Click to read the Seattle Weekly article.
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