4 ms·

You could pass a law to prevent or limit the amount that can be sued for negligence. It's I believe the case in Canada.

by x5n1 10y ago

Zigurd 10y ago
For a system that appears to be having a problem putting in quality controls, limiting liability runs the risk of having those limited payouts turn into a cost of doing business.
- x5n1 10y ago
  Well if you publish these cases online the hospital will lose substantial business. So it's like a canary. At least you are getting information about what's going wrong, and then you can put pressure on the management to fix it via other means like regulation, penalties, or whatever.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  OTOH doctors now do serious liability limitation by constantly worrying over their exposed "attack surface" in case something goes wrong. Having your medical staff being forced to be more worried about legal repercussions than well-being of their patients is not exactly healthy for anyone involved. Compare with aviation industry, where considerable effort was made to treat accidents as systemic problems and a) making sure individuals won't get immediately blamed for stuff that's not really their fault, and b) that everyone can learn as much as possible from every mistake made so that they don't happen again.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Malpractice limits exist in some jurisdictions in the US. Studies have shown that they do not have meaningful effects on the cost of liability insurance or the practice and cost of healthcare. (Which kind of makes sense: the limits are always adopted to prevent what are seen to be "extreme" awards which are awarded -- from the perspective of proponents of the limits -- by runaway courts/juries, or -- from the perspective of opponents -- for the most egregious incidents of malpractice; these make up a very small share of all awards and have a negligible effect on either a practitioner's or an insurer's exposure. You'd have to limit malpractice awards at a level that would affect common and uncontroversially warranted awards to have a meaningful effect.)
saint_fiasco 10y ago
That has the unfortunate effect of anchoring the amount so many people who would have sued for a modest amount see the limit and sue for that amount instead.

You could pass a law to prevent or limit the amount that can be sued for negligence. It's I believe the case in Canada.

by x5n1 10y ago

You could pass a law to prevent or limit the amount that can be sued for negligence. It's I believe the case in Canada.

For a system that appears to be having a problem putting in quality controls, limiting liability runs the risk of having those limited payouts turn into a cost of doing business.

x5n1 10y ago
Well if you publish these cases online the hospital will lose substantial business. So it's like a canary. At least you are getting information about what's going wrong, and then you can put pressure on the management to fix it via other means like regulation, penalties, or whatever.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
OTOH doctors now do serious liability limitation by constantly worrying over their exposed "attack surface" in case something goes wrong. Having your medical staff being forced to be more worried about legal repercussions than well-being of their patients is not exactly healthy for anyone involved. Compare with aviation industry, where considerable effort was made to treat accidents as systemic problems and a) making sure individuals won't get immediately blamed for stuff that's not really their fault, and b) that everyone can learn as much as possible from every mistake made so that they don't happen again.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Malpractice limits exist in some jurisdictions in the US. Studies have shown that they do not have meaningful effects on the cost of liability insurance or the practice and cost of healthcare. (Which kind of makes sense: the limits are always adopted to prevent what are seen to be "extreme" awards which are awarded -- from the perspective of proponents of the limits -- by runaway courts/juries, or -- from the perspective of opponents -- for the most egregious incidents of malpractice; these make up a very small share of all awards and have a negligible effect on either a practitioner's or an insurer's exposure. You'd have to limit malpractice awards at a level that would affect common and uncontroversially warranted awards to have a meaningful effect.)

saint_fiasco 10y ago

That has the unfortunate effect of anchoring the amount so many people who would have sued for a modest amount see the limit and sue for that amount instead.