Improving Medical Injury Compensation and Advancing Patient Safety: Linking Goals
America needs health courts to handle medical injury litigation--with specialized adjudicators, independent expert witnesses, predictable damage awards, and strong linkages to patient safety programs to reduce errors.
With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Common Good has worked with a research team from the Harvard School of Public Health to develop a proposal for how this system might be established.
There are many ways in which the health court proposal can be tailored to fit particular circumstances at the state level—and a number of ways in which pilot projects could be created. Among other options, a state legislature could establish a pilot program for compensating certain types of injuries outside the tort system. As another approach, health care providers could create a voluntary program linking error disclosure with structured arbitration and a predictable process for determining damages.
What Can I Do?
- Stay informed and involved with our work.
- Sign our petition.
- Tell your elected representatives that you support this proposal.
- Read about legislation relating to health courts and/or administrative compensation proposals.
- Download a draft board resolution in support of the proposal.
- Tell your colleagues and friends.
- Contact Common Good for more information, or to ask about outreach opportunities.
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Medical Liability:
Quick Facts
America’s medical liability system has broad shortcomings. The current medical liability system fails patients, health care providers, and society at large.
Patients lose. Few patients are compensated, and those that do generally endure years of litigation.
Physicians and other healthcare providers lose. They receive mixed signals on the appropriate standard of care, encouraging defensive medicine and adding to health care costs.
Society loses. Patient safety efforts, which require candor about mistakes and near misses, are stymied by fear of legal consequences.
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