Leaders in Patient Safety and Health Care Quality Call for Pilot Projects for Special Health Courts
Posted on: Wednesday, 5 July 2006, 15:00 CDT
NEW YORK, July 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Common Good, the bipartisan legal reform coalition, announced today that six leaders in patient safety and health care quality are calling for pilot projects for special health courts.
The idea of special health courts, being championed by Common Good, has generated bipartisan support as a way of restoring reliability to medical justice. Both U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and the Progressive Policy Institute, known in the 1990s as President Clinton's "idea mill," have endorsed the concept. So have hundreds of leaders in American health care and law.
In the U.S. Senate, Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Max Baucus (D-MT) have introduced a bill to authorize and fund pilot health courts. Last month the idea of special health courts was explored in hearings held by the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee.
The six leaders -- and their statements of support -- are:
Dennis S. O'Leary, MD -- President, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations:
"Our collective ability to forge real improvements in patient care requires timely creation of injury compensation systems -- like special health care courts -- that are patient-centered and focused on safety. The legislation introduced by Senators Enzi and Baucus is a major step forward in this regard."
John Rother -- Director of Policy and Strategy, AARP:
"AARP supports the idea of testing alternative compensation systems for those who have suffered injury in our healthcare system. We think faster and fairer patient compensation is possible, and we want a system focused on safety and quality improvement rather than on finding blame."
Margaret E. O'Kane -- President, National Committee for Quality Assurance:
"America's legal system today impedes efforts to enhance patient safety. As a nation, we should experiment with new approaches to resolving medical injury disputes -- such as health court pilot projects -- that would better compensate patients, improve efficiencies, and promote patient safety. The proposal advanced by Senators Enzi and Baucus represents a major step in the right direction."
Susan E. Sheridan, MIM, MBA -- Co-Founder and President, Consumers Advancing Patient Safety:
"Medical errors resulted in the death of my husband and a serious injury to my son. I firmly believe that reforming the legal system is a crucial part of efforts to improve patient safety in American health care. Pilot projects to explore new approaches in the legal system -- as the bill introduced by Senators Enzi and Baucus would do -- will help greatly."
Martin J. Hatlie, Esq. -- President, Partnership for Patient Safety:
"After a medical error, the malpractice system funnels patients and their providers into a brutal, "win at all costs" fight about money. Learning from mistakes is sacrificed to courtroom dramatics, and the emotional healing that both patients and providers need is impossible to reach. Well-designed health courts could de-escalate the fight and provide fairer results to both patients and health care providers. Senators Enzi and Baucus are to be commended for their bipartisan leadership in exploring and evaluating the merits of health courts."
David B. Kendall -- Senior Fellow for Health Policy, Progressive Policy Institute:
"For too long, the debate over medical malpractice reform has been deadlocked over caps on non-economic damages. The bill introduced by Senators Enzi and Baucus shifts the debate to the most important issues: speeding compensation to injured patients, reducing legal costs, and improving patient safety. Their proposal for health court pilot projects would be a major step forward especially if it were combined with legislation by Senators Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama that would prevent juries from using doctors' apologies against them in court."
"The unreliability of medical justice today has infected health care with a debilitating distrust," said Philip K. Howard, Chair of Common Good. "These consumer and patient safety leaders understand that a reliable system of justice is needed to align incentives towards patient safety and avoiding wasteful practices."
Last month, six hospitals and academic medical centers announced their strong interest in serving as pilot projects for special health courts. They are: Duke University School of Medicine and Health System (Durham, NC); Emory Healthcare (Atlanta, GA); Jackson Health System/University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine (Miami, FL); Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore, MD); New York-Presbyterian, The University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell (New York, NY); and Yale-New Haven Hospital/Yale Medical Group (New Haven, CT).
Special health courts would be devoted exclusively to addressing health care issues, much as existing specialized courts focus on other areas of law: admiralty courts, tax courts, drug courts, bankruptcy courts, and administrative tribunals in areas ranging from workers' compensation to vaccine liability.
The hallmark of special health courts would be full-time judges, trained in health care issues. These judges would define and interpret standards of care in malpractice cases, relying on neutral experts paid by the court and setting precedent from one case to another. Special health courts would ensure that patients injured by mistakes would be reliably compensated, without having to pay one third or more to lawyers.
Common Good is currently leading the effort to develop models for special health courts in partnership with The Harvard School of Public Health, with funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. For additional information on health courts, visit http://www.cgood.org/ .
Common Good is a bipartisan legal reform coalition dedicated to restoring common sense to American law. Its advisory board is composed of leaders in a wide range of fields: former government officials, including Howard Baker, Bill Bradley, Griffin Bell, Newt Gingrich, Eric Holder, George McGovern, Diane Ravitch, Alan Simpson, and Richard Thornburgh; current and former university presidents, including Bill Brody, Tom Kean, George Rupp, and John Silber; and numerous other leaders in education, healthcare, law, business, and public policy. The Chair of Common Good is Philip K. Howard, a lawyer and author of The Death of Common Sense and The Collapse of the Common Good.
Common Good
CONTACT: Danielle Rhoades of Goodman Media, +1-212-576-2700 x242, forCommon Good
Web site: http://www.cgood.org/
Source: PRNewswire
Related Articles
- Healthcare Leaders to Address Patient Safety and Reform at the National Patient Safety Foundation Congress, Washington, DC, May 20-22
- Sibley Memorial Selects QuadraMed Suite to Enhance Patient Safety
- Hendricks Regional Health Increases Patient Safety and Pharmacy Efficiency With Omnicell WorkflowRx 5.0
- Grant Regional Health Center Increases Patient Safety and Pharmacy Efficiency With Omnicell Medication Use Systems
- Multimillion Dollar Grant Awarded to Sutter Health for Patient Safety Programs
- Misys Healthcare Systems Receives Approval From Highmark eHealth Collaborative Initiative; Physicians Throughout Western and Central Pennsylvania Now Better Equipped to Make Measurable Improvements in Patient Safety and Care
- Hospitalized Patients Need Better Care; First Time 2 Major Medical Organizations Join Forces to Combat Critical Problem in Hospitals
- Patient Care Technology Systems Acquires nuMedica Emergency Department Tracking Solution
- Brigham and Women's Hospital Study Shows Doctors Are Taking Action to Improve Patient Safety and Care
- Patient Care Technology Systems Acquires nuMedica Emergency Department Paper Charting Division
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds