PROFESSIONTechnology raises expectations -- and tort riskDoctors need to ensure that patients have realistic expectations when it comes to new technology, a researcher says.By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Dec. 13, 2004. A new study says if doctors want to talk about improving the medical liability insurance climate, they can't ignore technology's role. Technology -- from new medical devices to new procedures -- drives health policy, and the health care delivery system and the medical advances allow more lives to be saved, according to the report "Medical Liability and the Culture of Technology." But that, in turn, creates more opportunities for errors in diagnosis and treatments. And the errors are often more visible and sometimes more severe than they otherwise would have been, the report suggests. That leads to lawsuits. In addition, improved technology raises patients' treatment outcome expectations. The study, part of The Pew Charitable Trust's ongoing Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania, notes that patients may sometimes have unrealistic expectations that medicine can cure their problems without any complications. When things don't turn out perfectly, patients expecting the ideal outcome may be more likely to sue. "New technology is exciting, and we've come to expect that medical innovation will continue," said Peter D. Jacobson, MPH, the study's author and a professor of health law and policy at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. "The study is just trying to suggest that there is a cost to it." No one is saying technology is the driving force behind the medical liability insurance problems physicians now face. But they are saying that technology's role needs to be looked at as people try to find a way to fix what organized medicine refers to as the broken medical liability system. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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