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Tort Claims Analysis in the Veterans Health Administration for Quality Improvement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

William B. Weeks ,
Tina Foster ,
Amy E. Wallace  and
Erik Stalhandske
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Extract

Tort claims have been studied for various reasons. Several studies have found that most tort claims are not related to negligent adverse events and most negligent adverse events do not result in tort claims. Several studies have examined the disposition of tort claims to understand the likelihood of payment once a claim has been made. Still others have proposed that tort-claims trend analysis may help administrators target their quality-improvement efforts and identify problems with quality that would not otherwise be captured.

In this article, we conduct a tort-claims analysis to explore areas for quality improvement, specifically for patient safety, in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Patient safety is an increasingly highlighted aspect of health-care delivery. Failure to assure patient safety can result in bad clinical outcomes, additional costs of care, and a negative organizational image. Filing a tort claim is one way for an individual to express concern about an organization. For our analysis, we draw from resolved tort claims in the Veterans Health Administration from fiscal years 1989 to 2000.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 29 , Issue 3-4 , Fall Winter 2001 , pp. 335 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2001

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