The Patient Injury Epidemic: Medical Malpractice Litigation as a Curative Tool

Abstract

This article considers the virtues of such litigation as a curative tool for the adverse event epidemic in U.S. health care, analyzes the mistaken premises of the critics, and offers a series of improvements to the litigation system to make more and fairer litigation possible. Reforms will increase the frequency of medical malpractice suits by improving the process of discovering medical adverse events, and litigating, insuring, and awarding compensation for them. Such reforms are intended to improve incentives to improve patient safety in hospital and other institutional health care settings.

Keywords: patient safety, tort reform, adverse events