Law protects physicians with patient safety plans

The legislation will help Washington state doctors internalize a culture of safety.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Nov. 8, 2004.

Many primary care physicians in Washington state operating in small group practices now have the same rights as hospitals to learn from mistakes without fear that those lessons will be used against them.

Practices with as few as five licensed health care professionals can now establish Coordinated Quality Improvement Programs to review negative outcomes, injuries, infection controls and quality improvement strategies. The information these programs develop will be protected from legal discovery and can be shared with different organizations.

Hospitals and larger practices were granted this right in 1993, but the law was amended this year to include smaller practices. The Washington State Medical Assn. -- at its annual meeting last month -- voted to make implementation of the law as "broad and effective" as possible.

"It's just another step in trying to accomplish two things: Encouraging more physicians to get involved in patient safety, and to share information about what we can do to continually evolve a better culture of safety," said WSMA Director of Professional Affairs John Arveson. "That's what we're after -- Getting the entire profession to adopt and internalize a culture of safety."

There was some initial confusion that the new law applied to practices with as few as five physicians, but Pattie Rathbun, health policy development coordinator with the Washington Dept. of Health, said licensed nurse practitioners, nurses, physician assistants and others can be included in the total.