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New Thinking in Medical Liability Reform Paul Barringer and Andrew Wasicek
ACNM on Location, May 23, 2008 Common Good General Counsel Paul Barringer recently spoke to a group at the Annual Conference of the American College of Nurse Midwives in Boston, MA. He discussed the need for true medical liability reform that would improve patient safety, provide reliable and efficient compensation, and reduce time and cost. In a follow-up article for the organization's newsletter, Barringer describes how health courts could offer just such a solution.
"America’s medical malpractice system needs major surgery. The existing system is wasteful and inefficient, with more than half of the money spent in medical liability cases paying for attorneys’ fees and administrative costs. It is also slow and cumbersome: by the close of a case, the average claimant will have endured fi ve years of litigation. And it compensates few deserving patients. According to the landmark Harvard Medical Practice Study, fewer than two percent of medical error victims file a claim.
"Creating a specialized approach to resolving injury disputes could help correct these failings. In a specialized dispute resolution system, or “health court,” adjudicators could rely on neutral expert witnesses, retained and compensated by the court, instead of the competing experts for hire found in the current system. As one possibility, adjudicators rather than juries could render decisions about the standard of care. Written rulings by adjudicators could help to inform decisions in future cases and would send clear and consistent signals to health care providers."
» Read the full article
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