Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Apologizing for errors halves malpractice suits
University of Michigan Health System reports that admitting medical errors and offering compensation before being sued resulted in malpractice claims falling from 121 in 2001 to 61 in 2006, with corresponding savings in costs per claim.
The Associated Press profiled the hospital system's efforts not only as a business decision but also an ethical one that benefits patients, while not exposing the system to further litigation.
Apologies aren't easy, but ACP's news publications have offered advice to make them easier:
--"Internist searches for answers when test results go missing," ACP Internist, April 2009.
--"Apologize like a pro," ACP Hospitalist, January 2008.
--"To err is human ... to not plan for it is trouble," ACP Hospitalist, December 2008.
--"Owning up to a mistake takes courage--and practice," ACP Internist, April 2009.
Also, PIER offers an entire module on disclosing medical errors, and Annals of Internal Medicine looked at the state-by-state efforts to implement shield laws for physicians who disclose errors.
Labels: ethics, malpractice, patient communication
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
10:34 AM
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Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert Fuchs, MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP,
graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of
Medicine, where he also did his internal medicine training.
Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs
spent three years as a full-time faculty member at UCLA School of
Medicine before opening his private practice in Beverly Hills in
2000.
David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned
authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of
chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in
integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about
health topics for patients and health professionals.
Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more
than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an
academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split
between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science,
medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the
Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship &
Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of
Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty
hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of
hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass
Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings
of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care,
illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and
decision-making from the perspective of an active primary care
physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital
sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program
Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
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I'm dok
ACP Member Mike Aref, MD, PhD, ACP Member, is an academic
hospitalist with an interest in basic and clinical science and
education, with interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic
testing using novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic
reasoning, medical informatics, new medical education modalities,
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communication, quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical
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Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites
for influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of
medical practice, including controversies in the doctor-patient
relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When
he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.
Medical
Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, ACP Member, shares her ideas on education,
ethics in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on
medicine are informed by her past experiences in caring for
patients, as a researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient
who's had breast cancer.
Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a
small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of
musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and
medical ethics, in no particular order.
Reflections
of a Grady Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being
a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.
Technology in (Medical) Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in
education, social media and networking, practice management and
evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge
management.
White Coat Underground
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and
teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been
around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the
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ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist also contribute to and draw upon content from Get Better Health, a network created by Val Jones, MD, to support and promote health care professional bloggers, provide insightful and trustworthy health commentary, and help to inform health policy makers about the clinician's point of view on health care reform, science, research and patient care.
Other blogs of note:
American
Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine
publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in
internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and
community-based practice.
Clinical Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP
Member, associate program director at New York University Medical
Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents
and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news,
commentary and more.
db's Medical
Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating
medicine and the health care system.
Interact
MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so
he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the
Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news
of the day.
PLoS
Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a
blog.
White Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency
room physician.
2 Comments:
Instead of focusing on apologizing, we should be concentrating on tort reform, which succeeded in Ohio. More importantly, we need a filter to prevent groundless lawsuits from becoming airborne. I'm in the legal arena again, and I haven't done anything wrong. See www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com
Some of the litigation scenarios you address are "bolts from the blue" and entirely unavoidable by doctors. And tort reform filters such as affidavits of merit are easily overcome, as you describe.
Doctors have described in our pages and elsewhere how displays of compassion pre-empted their being named in lawsuits, even when others involved were eventually sued. Physicians are making business decisions, but also ethical and personal ones when they apologize.
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