Is Better Patient Safety Associated with Less Malpractice Activity?

Evidence from California

Michael D. Greenberg, Amelia Haviland, J. Scott Ashwood, Regan Main

ResearchPublished Mar 26, 2010

In principle, efforts to improve patient safety, if they are successful, should lead to reductions in claims of medical malpractice. In practice, however, this has not yet been systematically demonstrated to be so. The authors of this report examined the relationship between safety outcomes in hospitals and malpractice claiming against providers, using administrative data and measures for California from 2001 to 2005. They found that decreases in the county-level frequency of adverse safety outcomes were positively and significantly associated with decreases in the volume of malpractice claims, as captured by records from four of the largest malpractice insurers in the state. This result suggests that policy options that improve patient safety may offer a new avenue for reducing malpractice pressure on physicians, at the same time that they improve clinical outcomes.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Greenberg, Michael D., Amelia Haviland, J. Scott Ashwood, and Regan Main, Is Better Patient Safety Associated with Less Malpractice Activity? Evidence from California. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2010. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR824.html.
BibTeX RIS

The research described in this report was conducted under the auspices of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice (ICJ) and funded by pooled contributions from the ICJ and from several insurance companies, individuals, and nonprofit groups with interests in patient safety and medical malpractice policy.

This publication is part of the RAND technical report series. RAND technical reports, products of RAND from 2003 to 2011, presented research findings on a topic limited in scope or intended for a narrow audience; discussions of the methodology employed in research; literature reviews, survey instruments, modeling exercises, guidelines for practitioners and research professionals, and supporting documentation; and preliminary findings. All RAND technical reports were subject to rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.