JCAHO: Liability crisis is a barrier to patient safety

Removing gag clauses and preventing "junk testimony" are among its proposals to improve safety.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Feb. 28, 2005.

Declaring that the medical liability crisis is a barrier to improving medical safety and quality, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued a "road map" for reform that includes strategies to prevent medical injury, promote open communication and create a "patient-centered" injury compensation system.

JCAHO President Dennis O'Leary, MD, presented those three broad strategies and 19 specific recommendations at a Feb. 10 press conference. The recommendations included encouraging adherence to clinical guidelines, encouraging nonpunitive error reporting, prohibiting settlement gag clauses, and advocating for court-appointed, independent expert witnesses.

Dr. O'Leary was joined at the press conference by Susan Sheridan, the co-founder of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety, who praised the boldness of JCAHO proposals.

Sheridan said that she was shocked at the lack of ethics among expert medical witnesses, and she called on medical associations to take action against their members who give "junk testimony."

These thoughts were echoed by Randall R. Bovbjerg, an attorney with the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center, who said it was not enough "to pound on bad experts," but good experts have to be encouraged to come forward.