New York State to Conduct Medical Liability Reform Demonstration with $3 Million Federal Grant

New York State will conduct a pilot program with a goal of reducing expenses associated with medical malpractice lawsuits, improving patient safety, and reducing preventable medical injuries. The three-year initiative will be supported by a $2.9 million grant from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

The project will be led by the New York State Unified Court System, with the Department of Health (DOH) performing a major role. In addition, five New York City hospitals will participate in the initiative: Beth Israel Medical Center, Maimonides Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai Medical Center, and New York Presbyterian Hospital--Columbia Presbyterian Center. The hospitals will receive funds that can be applied to patient safety initiatives and will contribute significant in-kind funds to implement their functions under the grant.

The project consists of four major components:

• each hospital will promote a culture of patient safety;
• four hospitals will initiate safety interventions in obstetrics; one hospital will initiate safety interventions in general surgery;
• each hospital will implement a program toprovide early disclosure to a patient and/or patient’s family when a medical error occurs and make an early (pre-litigation) offer of compensation if appropriate; and
• a courtroom will be established to achieve early settlement through judge-directed negotiations for medical malpractice cases that do not settle early and lead to lawsuits. The judges for those proceedings will be carefully selected and trained according to a curriculum designed especially for this function, with support from the medical associations.

Data will be collected and analyzed from each component of the pilot, and the Judge-Directed Negotiation program will be evaluated by the Harvard School of Public Health.

New York State is burdened with some of the highest medical malpractice premiums in the nation, and led the country in the number of medical malpractice claims filed with the National Practitioner Data Bank for the decade ending in 2009. Hospitals in New York State spend over $1 billion annually on medical malpractice expenses, representing 3 percent of total revenues. Due to high liability premiums and large compensation awards, a number of hospitals in the state have shut down their obstetrics departments or reduced the number of obstetric beds. Contact: William Van Slyke