IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v86y2008i2-3p153-162.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improvements in the safety of patient care can help end the medical malpractice crisis in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Dalton, George D.
  • Samaropoulos, Xanthia F.
  • Dalton, Augustine C.

Abstract

The publication of To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999 made the general public aware of the large number of patients that suffer preventable medical injuries in hospitals throughout the United States. Improvements in patient safety are needed to reduce this high incidence of medical error and must include the establishment of a culture of safety in every healthcare facility. A culture of safety is characterized by honesty, transparent error communication, and a systems analysis approach to medical error prevention. This type of medical culture can serve as the foundation for sustained improvements in patient safety and will help provide permanent relief from the medical malpractice crisis. Health policymakers should create policies that encourage hospital executives to establish and maintain cultures of safety in their institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Dalton, George D. & Samaropoulos, Xanthia F. & Dalton, Augustine C., 2008. "Improvements in the safety of patient care can help end the medical malpractice crisis in the United States," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(2-3), pages 153-162, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:86:y:2008:i:2-3:p:153-162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(07)00232-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mello, Michelle M. & Hemenway, David, 2004. "Medical malpractice as an epidemiological problem," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 39-46, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Riga, Marina & Vozikis, Athanassios & Pollalis, Yannis & Souliotis, Kyriakos, 2015. "MERIS (Medical Error Reporting Information System) as an innovative patient safety intervention: A health policy perspective," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(4), pages 539-548.
    2. Milena Vainieri & Elisabetta Flore & Riccardo Tartaglia & Tommaso Bellandi, 2014. "Analisi comparata dei modelli di gestione dei sinistri in sanit?. Prime evidenze empiriche sui costi dei sinistri," MECOSAN, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(92), pages 27-53.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Buzzacchi, Luigi & Scellato, Giuseppe & Ughetto, Elisa, 2016. "Frequency of medical malpractice claims: The effects of volumes and specialties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 152-160.
    2. Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, 2010. "The Effect of Malpractice Liability on the Specialty of Obstetrics and Gynecology," NBER Working Papers 15841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Panthöfer, Sebastian, 2016. "Tort Reform and the Length of Physician Office Visits," UC3M Working papers. Economics 23861, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    4. Pesko, Michael F. & Cea, Meagan & Mendelsohn, Jayme & Bishop, Tara F., 2017. "The effects of malpractice non-economic damage caps on the supply of physician labor: Heterogeneity by physician age and risk," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 7-14.
    5. Harrington, David E. & Sayre, Edward A., 2010. "Managed care and measuring medical outcomes: Did the rise of HMOs contribute to the fall in the autopsy rate?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 191-198, January.
    6. Chin, Marshall H. & King, Paula T. & Jones, Rhys G. & Jones, Bryn & Ameratunga, Shanthi N. & Muramatsu, Naoko & Derrett, Sarah, 2018. "Lessons for achieving health equity comparing Aotearoa/New Zealand and the United States," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(8), pages 837-853.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:86:y:2008:i:2-3:p:153-162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.