That was among the messages discussed by a group of health policy leaders, legislators, attorneys, and health care professionals from three states recently at a conference in Cheyenne.
The event was co-hosted by Common Good, a non-partisan legal reform coalition, and the Wyoming Health Care Commission to look at ways to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors.
Common Good has initiated a six-state initiative, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to promote the creation of special health courts to handle medical injury disputes and promote health system improvements in patient care.
Michelle Mello, JD, PhD, summarized a research study at the Harvard School of Public Health that showed the majority of medical errors don’t result from the negligence of a single physician or nurse, but are caused by a “system” of errors involving three or more factors.
“Those factors include not only individual factors such as an error in judgment,” Mello said, “but also include system factors like a communication problem and patient-related factors as well.”
Noting that the current medical liability system looks only at determining who’s at fault after an injury has occurred, proponents of a new administrative court option said it encourage a patient safety culture that would correct system failures before they occurred.
Dale Nance, JD, professor of law at Case Western University, discounted concerns about the medical liability system. Nance said the system is stable and not “running out of control” as some critics suggest.
There is need for some changes in the system, he said, mostly to reduce the expenses of litigation and encourage doctors to disclose their errors to patients, there is no need for the adoption of a new administrative court system.
A panel including Larry Kirven, MD of Buffalo; Diane Noton, MD of Saratoga; Robert Tiedeken, JD of Cheyenne; Rod Barton of Powell, Denise Burke, JD of Laramie; Peggy Callantine, RN of Sheridan; and Ken Vines, JD of Cheyenne shared their views on what improvements might be needed to improve patient safety and medical liability systems.
The Wyoming Health Care Commission’s Patient Safety Task Force will continue to review options and recommendations.
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