Blog

Much has been written about the medical malpractice “crisis” by doctors as well as hospitals.  But a recent op-ed article draws some interesting conclusions.

Professor Joanna Schwartz explains, “Experts agree that the best way to reduce medical error is to gather and analyze information about past errors with an eye toward improving future care. But many believe that a major barrier to doing so is the medical malpractice tort system: the threat of being sued is believed to prevent the kind of transparency necessary to identify and learn from errors when they occur.”

But Professor Schwartz conducted a study of risk management departments of hospitals and learned that malpractice litigation has helped increase transparency in medical care.  I highly recommend reading the entire op-ed article.