I’m Getting a Little Nervous
I am starting to get a little uncomfortable with the direction some policy discussions are taking with reference to the alleged connections between medical malpractice law suits and the debt crisis. Yes, in fact, the amount of medical negligence in the nation is shocking and frightening. What boggles my mind, and what should certainly raise a red flag for readers of this newsletter, is how elected officials, particularly on the right, and other respected opinion leaders are ignoring the real problems in our healthcare system. They are apparently turning a blind eye when it comes to addressing the problem of deaths, injuries and proven remedies that greatly reduce the incidence of doctor and hospital error. Instead, the insurance and big medicine lobbies are convincing lawmakers to misguidedly focus on reducing the accountability of doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers. It’s to hell with the legal rights of sick and injured patients. And then to add insult to injury, taxpayers are being forced to pick up the tab to care for the injured, while the insurance industry makes off like bandits. Where is the logic, and fairness, here?
This past February, The American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology published an article about a carefully monitored patient safety program that was implemented in the obstetric unit (labor and delivery) at NY Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center. The new safety protocols were established at this renown healthcare institution back in 2002. Interestingly, the program was recommended by MCIC Vermont, the hospital’s malpractice insurance carrier. The program included the following, among other things:
- Team training and other methods to improve communication
- Electronic medical record charting
- Improved on-call scheduling
- New drug protocols
- The addition of full time patient safety obstetric nurses
- Made better use of physicians assistants
- Put a laborist on staff
- Required certification in electronic fetal monitoring
- Held obstetric emergency drills
Looking at these steps the hospital took only begs the question: As a patient about to give birth, wouldn’t you expect at least this from any hospital you enter?
What’s more, the hospital found that by taking these steps it not only decreased severe accidents, but it also had an immediate impact on malpractice insurance compensation payments. For example, the insurance carrier reported that in 2009, “Compensation payment dropped 99.1%. The average yearly compensation payment in the 3 years from 2007 to 2009 was $2,550,136, compared with an average of $27,591,610 in the previous 4 years (2003-2006), a yearly saving of $25,041,475 during the last 3 years.” Sounds good, right?
But what followed were some really wrongheaded suggestions by former OMB director Peter Orszag (who now works for Citigroup). He said, bizarrely, that one good way to contain the deficit was by enacting medical malpractice reform -- even after the Congressional Budget Office had determined that savings from medical malpractice reform, at best, was a trivial 0.5%, even if Congress enacts all of what arguably are the most Draconian, cruel restrictions on the rights of patients that exist in this country, which is the unconstitutional bill that’s circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives right now.
