Evaluating the Medical Malpractice System and Options for Reform

Abstract

The U.S. medical malpractice liability system has two principal objectives: to compensate patients who are injured through the negligence of healthcare providers and to deter providers from practicing negligently. In practice, however, the system is slow and costly to administer. It both fails to compensate patients who have suffered from bad medical care and compensates those who haven't. According to opinion surveys of physicians, the system creates incentives to undertake cost-ineffective treatments based on fear of legal liability—to practice "defensive medicine." The failures of the liability system and the high cost of health care in the United States have led to an important debate over tort policy. How well does malpractice law achieve its intended goals? How large of a problem is defensive medicine and can reforms to malpractice law reduce its impact on healthcare spending? The flaws of the existing system have led a number of states to change their laws in a way that would reduce malpractice liability—to adopt "tort reforms." Evidence from several studies suggests that wisely chosen reforms have the potential to reduce healthcare spending significantly with no adverse impact on patient health outcomes.

Expanding Patients' Property Rights In Their Medical Records

“…For example, some states have restricted the extent to which information gathered as part of a private, voluntary medical error reporting system can be used in medical malpractice cases (Kessler 2011). Such restrictions involve a tradeoff between gains from enhanced incentives for quality improvement and losses from limiting injured plaintiffs' access to information; imposing similar restrictions on the use of EMRs would involve the same sort of judgment.…”

Recommender Privacy Preserving Reputation Based Medical Services Scheme Using a Variant of ElGamal

“…We feel that, due to the lack of reputation based medical services, new will often go for services from poor . Literature on poor medical services is a lot [3]- [7]. Our research does not focus on these poor medical services, but rather wish to use this as ground to present a platform that will warn potential of these poor .…”

Malpractice Claims in Dakhalia and Damietta Governorates: A 10 Year Evaluation Study

“…But, healthcare costs will likely worsen as physicians increasingly practice defensive medicine, thereby over utilizing resources with the goal of documenting diligence, prudence, and skill as defenses against potential litigation, rather than aimed at any patient benefit [6,7]. Therefore, it is imperative that physicians develop an understanding of basic substantive and procedural law; first, so that their practices can be more focused and rewarding and less a fear of the unknown; second, that they can work proactively to minimize their legal risk; third, so that they can better communicate with risk managers, attorneys, and insurers; and finally, so that they can better understand and participate in future legal, legislative, regulatory, and public policy development [8].…”