Republicans are well known for pounding the tort deform drum as an easy fix for everything from bringing down the deficit, to reigning in medical malpractice insurance rates and reducing so-called defensive medicine. Although supporters can offer no empirical evidence to support any of these contentions, they seem to subscribe to the notion that if you say it enough it must be true.
But one republican seems to be on to something that looks decidedly different in its focus on medical errors. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R.-N.C.) recently penned a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelious on the issue. Her idea is to incorporate a thorough study of medical errors in the push toward use of electronic medical records. Ellers, who chairs the Healthcare subcommittee of the House Small Business Committee, references reported failures of health information technology systems in tracking errors, be they human or technological. The goal is to further develop and refine these technology systems so all errors are better assessed and prevented in the future if possible.
That seems like a good idea.
Bret Hanna of Wrona DuBois in Utah, focuses exclusively on litigating plaintiffs’ medical malpractice and catastrophic personal injury cases. He has represented clients in state and federal courts, in mediations, and in administrative proceedings in Michigan and Utah since 1991.
One Comment
Wayne Parsons
Thanks for letting us know about Rep. Elmers. She deserves our support. The anestesiologists as a group were the first to stop whing about medical malractice and begging for tort reform, and do something about patoient dafety. With 98,000 deaths each year (www.98000reasons.org) resulting from "avoidable medical errors" (not just bad results)it seems that the first place to look is in the doctors' offices and the operating rooms, not the courthouse. Anestesiologists looked at closed case srudies to come up with areas where mistakes were occurring and then used education and better medical practices to reduce the injuries. I know that many, if not most, Republicans would support accountability when it comes to life in general. Congratulations to Rep. Elmers for using common sense to approach this serious health issue. I wish doctrors would get on board with this but you never see a doctor try to support anything but tort reform which does nothing but increase the death and injury toll.
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