Book Description

"Closing Death's Door explores innovative legal strategies to address the challenge of medical error. In the United States today, several hundred thousand patients die in hospitals each year because of errors in medical treatment-the nation's third leading cause of death. The legal mechanism designed to deal with this epidemic of injury and death is the medical malpractice system. It has failed to stem the tide of iatrogenic harm. Among the reasons are the costliness of the malpractice system, its availability to only a minuscule percentage of those harmed, and decades of "tort reform" efforts that have effectively extinguished the system for all but the most egregious claims. In 1999, in To Err Is Human, the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) sounded an alarm about the toll taken by medical error. Its proposed solution-a set of reporting systems to document problems and generate data on which solutions might be based-has been a failure. The time has come for a fresh look at what the law might do to contribute to patient safety. To begin a conversation about legal innovations designed to spur healthcare system improvements directed at reducing harmful medical errors, this book explores a number of possible steps, including: Well-designed economic incentives to stimulate greater investment in safety. Promotion of systems approaches to safer delivery of care. Government regulation and surveillance in especially risky treatment contexts. Encouragement of a range of technological improvements, especially involving information technology"--