A team of obstetricians from New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City reduced their department's medical malpractice payouts by more than 99 percent after launching a six-year comprehensive obstetrics safety program, according to a Crain's New York Business report.
New safety measures reduced errors, reduced "sentinel events" such as avoidable deaths, and helped to prevent unwarranted suits by documenting everything physician did correctly in cases where a poor outcome was not their fault, according to the report.
Annual medical malpractice payouts dropped from an average of a $28 million from 2003 to 2006 to $2.6 million a year from 2007 to 2009. The payouts are expected to decrease further since there were no sentinel events reported in 2008 and 2009.
Read the Crain's New York Business report on New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Read more about medical malpractice:
- President Would Consider Malpractice Reform, But Not What GOP Wants
- Absence of Physicians Blunts Benefits of Malpractice Mediation
New safety measures reduced errors, reduced "sentinel events" such as avoidable deaths, and helped to prevent unwarranted suits by documenting everything physician did correctly in cases where a poor outcome was not their fault, according to the report.
Annual medical malpractice payouts dropped from an average of a $28 million from 2003 to 2006 to $2.6 million a year from 2007 to 2009. The payouts are expected to decrease further since there were no sentinel events reported in 2008 and 2009.
Read the Crain's New York Business report on New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Read more about medical malpractice:
- President Would Consider Malpractice Reform, But Not What GOP Wants
- Absence of Physicians Blunts Benefits of Malpractice Mediation