Are voluntary medical courts a step in the right direction?

With the passage of the health care reform bill, it looks like health courts may finally be closer to becoming a reality. But as Harvard Professor Dr. Michelle Mello points out in a recent post on the AMN Healthcare blog, there are still lingering concerns about how these courts will be implemented.  

Through her work at the Harvard School of Public Health, and together with leaders at Common Good, Mello is at the forefront of the health court movement. Despite being initially optimistic about health courts being included in the initial drafts of legislation, she is concerned the final bill creates a voluntary court that has limited adjudication powers. As the AMN post points out, “the current system would remain in place as a backstop to (a) voluntary health court.”

Comments

[Lavinia Gene Weissman]

Health Courts could be a way to bring about personalized repair to people harmed and improve quality of care over time, if they activity is approached from a view of translational or evidence based practice.

As an advocate, I have steered clear of situation involving mal practice and learned from situation where law prevented mal practice.

One case ended up assuring a repair and a leading physician documenting harm.

In another situation with Federal Worker Comp the client simply did not have the right expert specialty opinion and her hands were harmed for life.

If situations like this are used for both the purpose of education, we might find ourselves with the resources to build an response program based on health court similar to http://www.uptodate.com.

I have been reading numerous books by Cass Sunstein, who now advises the Obama Administration.

If health courts can be designed as an activity that focuses on the well being of the patient and performance of clinicians who serve the patient we could find ourselves building a quality assurance agenda out of lessons learned.

Personally as a person (not a professional). I would find it far more empowering if mistakes and bad practice are reviewed from a Berwick Quality Assurance perspective and then the findings are used for educational purposes.

We are moving to a time in health where I believe more than being innovative, we have to shift the practice of repair and review of abuse into a method of managing for quality and performance.