Publications and research

Error Reporting and Injury Compensation

Advancing Patient Safety Through a State Patient Safety Organization

In: Wyoming Law Review, 8(2), pp.349-371

Published: Sep 03, 2008

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Error Reporting and Injury Compensation By: Barringer PJ and Kachalia AB Published In: Wyoming Law Review, 8(2), pp. 349-371	Quantity

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Initiatives at state and federal levels to reduce medical errors are receiving more attention from health policy-makers. This article provides an overview of state-level initiatives to improve patient safety that rely on voluntary reporting of medical errors. The article also discusses the status of a new federal law encouraging development of voluntary reporting initiatives, the 2005 Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA). Much of the drive for these initiatives stems from the need to address the chilling effect that the current U.S. legal system has on providers’ willingness to disclose errors.

More than half of states have a mandatory adverse-event reporting system in place. Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusettes, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania all have patient safety organizations, most of which have some kind of reporting system. The authors outline the existing system in each of these states, in order that other states seeking to put new safety organizations in place have available a systematic description of the structure and function of these organizations.

The PSQIA is an attempt by federal policy-makers to encourage ‘voluntary, provider-driven approaches’ to improving patient safety. In its first two years, PSQIA has fostered 50–100 entities seeking to become patient safety organizations (PSOs). Two other primary goals of the PSQIA are to address providers’ fears that reporting errors will be held against them, and to gather data about medical errors.

This article also discusses some of the plans put forward to remove medical liability claims from the tort system. The authors propose an alternative approach involving PSOs making available a process that involves elements of an administration (i.e., nontort) compensation proposal, but that would be voluntary for patients and providers. Such plans could be financed, in part, through funds saved by not relying entirely on the tort system—a wasteful and expensive method of dealing with medical errors—to address these issues.

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Grants

Common Good and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Expand Initiative to Promote Health Courts (News releases)
"Health Courts" and Accountability for Patient Safety (Journal articles)
Administrative "Health Courts" for Medical Injury Claims (Journal articles)
Health Courts, Administrative Compensation and Patient Safety: Research, Policy and Practice (Video)
Health Courts: An Alternative for Resolving Medical Liability Claims: Research Highlight (Research highlights)
Michelle Mello Podcast on Health Courts (Audio podcasts)
Health Courts: An Alternative for Resolving Medical Liability Claims (Stories and articles)
Health Courts Offer a New Approach (Stories and articles)
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Listed below is one grant that supported this project.

Grant	Awarded to	Amount
Designing a reliable system of medical justice	Common Good Institute Inc. (New York, NY) ID#: 58662 http://www.commongood.org	Approved award: $994,560 Actual award: $976,172 February 2007 to September 2009 This grant has ended.

RWJF may have supported this project with other grants that are not listed.

The Pioneer Portfolio has launched Pioneering Ideas, a blog for RWJF staff, grantees and other innovators to share breakthrough ideas for health and health care. Here are several recent entries:

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Error Reporting and Injury Compensation

Advancing Patient Safety Through a State Patient Safety Organization

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