Loyola medical liability conference

Last week we went to a Loyola sponsored conference on “Medical Liability and the Illinois Civil Justice System”.  Speakers were lined up to talk about various topics, some tired (no-fault insurance schemes), some fresh (full disclosure malpractice programs).

CJ&D’s Executive Director Joanne Doroshow was asked to talk about “health courts,” which are basically administrative panels designed to replace civil courts as a way of settling malpractice claims.  “Tort reformers” like to think they would speed up the settlement and payment process, but really they are a terrible idea. The health care industry would be the "experts" that the administrative panel would have to turn to, so the courts would almost always favor corporate interests over injured victims. In any case, health courts don’t have much support, since they are impractical and unconstitutional (read the CJ&D report "Why Health Courts are Unconstitutional" for more).

I thought the most interesting topic discussed was full disclosure programs for reporting physician errors at hospitals.  Tim McDonald, the chief safety officer at the University of Illinois Medical Center Chicago, talked about how the full disclosure program he installed has resulted in across-the-board improvements in areas like quality of care and speedy malpractice payouts.  I was pleased that the first statement out of his mouth was that he was not in favor of tort reform and never will be.  He went on to talk about how much of a struggle it was to implement his philosophy at the medical center.  For example, he told a story about how in interviewing defense firms, he opened with this hypothetical situation: a man undergoes surgery to have a leg removed, but doctors mistakenly amputate the wrong limb.  There is no question the hospital is at fault.  What would you advise?, he asked them.  13 out of 16 firms interviewed advised the hospital to deny fault anyway.

His talk was the most popular of the day, which was surprising since much of the crowd came from the health care industry or from defense firms.  Hopefully this is a sign that more hospitals are open to exploring ways of improving patient safety and increasing accountability, instead of just toeing the insurance company line of avoiding payouts by denying fault at all costs.