We’re calling for a new approach to resolving injury litigation – one that fairly compensates injured patients, simplifies the litigation process, and improves quality of care.  In particular, what’s needed is a special, voluntary process for dealing with medical injury cases.

What Would the Benefits Be?

• More patients would receive quick and fair compensation.  The special process would involve less time, less hassle, and fewer expenses than a trial court does. You’d get answers about what caused your injury without having to spend years in court.
• Expert judges and unbiased witnesses would ensure consistent decisions. Judges would complete a series of training programs to prepare them for the intricacies of medical liability cases. A diverse panel of lawyers, providers, judges and physicians would create a pool of expert witnesses that judges could select from to provide insight during court proceedings.  Decisions would be based on better information, since judges would rely on neutral medical experts – not competing experts hired by each side.
• More doctors would practice open and honest medicine.  In a less adversarial environment, doctors who make errors or see them made by others would be more likely to talk to each other about what went wrong, leading to better quality and safer care.
  
• Safer care, more accountability.  The system would have stronger links to efforts of licensing boards, state departments of health, and other organizations focused on patient safety, which would promote greater consumer protection. Claims information would be made available for researchers who could use it to better understand how and why injuries occur, and to prevent them from happening again.

How the System Would Work

A patient shouldn’t always need to rely on an attorney to represent them to get justice. The new system should provide patients with options that would be easier, cheaper, faster and more reliable in giving patients the justice and compensation they deserve.

• Patients or families could choose whether or not to participate in a system like this.
• The decision makers in the system would have health care expertise and better understand the complicated nature of medical injury cases.
• These decision makers would be able to work with independent expert witnesses who could help them figure out why an injury occurred.
• Decisions about who is at fault and damage awards would be more consistent and reasonable from case to case.
• The system would be patient-friendly, so it ideally could be accessed at least some of the time without the need for a lawyer.
• Patients would provide input to the creation and oversight of this system, to make sure that it protected their rights.  There should also be a patient ombudsman.
• Most importantly, information about why injuries occurred would be readily available to researchers and health care providers to help improve quality of care and make it safer for everyone to get medical treatment. 

The basic idea is this: the system should fairly compensate injured patients, ensure accountability and protection of healthcare consumers, and promote improvements in quality of care 

Who Supports this System?

Fortunately, there are many policy leaders who agree with these ideas. The U.S. Congress is currently working on several proposals that will help to establish a system like this in the states, are elected officials in a number of states.  Many leading organizations support this idea, including consumer and patient groups, (like Consumers Advancing Patient Safety and AARP), health care providers, quality organizations, and others.  Common Good, the nonpartisan legal reform coalition, is currently leading the effort to promote this idea, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and in partnership with researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, the Harvard Medical School and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. 

You can read more details about this proposal here.

But we can’t do it alone. To make America’s health care system safer and our medical justice system fair and consistent, we need your help.