Doctors say care quality is fine; public isn't so sure

Physicians say they want more training on how to handle errors but don't want the public to have access to error-reporting systems.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Nov. 18, 2002.

Unlike the general public, physicians don't believe the quality of medical care is a problem or that a national agency to address medical errors is needed, according to a study published in the Oct. 28 Archives of Internal Medicine.

"I think, overall, physicians tend to minimize quality problems -- both at a personal level and an institutional level," said the study's author, Andrew R. Robinson, MD, an internist at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

The study surveyed 594 physicians in Colorado, 304 physicians from throughout the country and 500 Colorado households.

While 67.6% of the households viewed quality as a problem, only 29.1% of the Colorado physicians surveyed and 34.9% in the national physician sample felt the same way.

Other significant differences included 59.8% of the Colorado households calling for a national agency to address medical errors, compared with only 24.1% of the Colorado physicians; and 90.2% of the public sample calling for mandatory reporting of serious medical errors, compared with only 54.7% of the state's physicians.

"The public thinks physicians should be held accountable for the errors they make, and I can understand that," Dr. Robinson said.

Colorado physicians (69.7%) and the public (86.6%) both strongly believed that reducing medical errors should be a national priority, but Dr. Robinson downplayed that finding.

"It's what they ought to say, so they say it," he said. "But most physicians don't tend to agree with a lot of the solutions proposed -- especially mandatory reporting, because most are concerned about medical malpractice." [...]