Healthcare System Errors Impact Malpractice Claims
The Doctor’s Company, a physician-owned medical malpractice insurer recently released a report on what impact health system errors have on medical malpractice claims. They conducted a claims analysis and found that health system errors contributed to 30 percent of settled claims. Of 363 closed settled claims from 2004 to 2006, the top health system errors were, medication-related (32 percent), communication (27 percent), health system infections (18 percent), medical records (13 percent) and wrong-site surgery (5 percent). These errors account for 95 percent of the total system errors in The Doctors Company’s analysis. Additionally, the analysis indicated that internal medicine, family practice and psychiatry represent nearly half of all medication-related errors such as: Lack of medication monitoring (43 percent) and dosage mistakes (26 percent). They account for 69 percent of the medication-related errors. Organizations such as the National Patient Safety Foundation are working to eliminate these five types of system errors. This analysis was undertaken to improve healthcare. Dr. Troxel, MD medical director of The Doctors Company concludes, “As the leading physician-owned professional liability insurance company in the U.S., our claims represents a sample of all medical malpractice claims and errors throughout the healthcare system. We believe that malpractice claims are a valuable source of information on preventable medical errors and that public disclosure of this data will contribute to the advancement of patient safety.”
