Enterprise Liability for Medical Malpractice and Health Care Quality Improvement
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1994
Journal Title
American Journal of Law & Medicine
ISSN
0098-8588
DOI
10.1017/S0098858800006407[Opens in a new window]
Abstract
[Assumptions about quality in health care and its defense] are rooted in the past, a past in which the doctor ruled. Strangely, those assumptions have survived the revolutions that now deny the doctor the sole authority to judge and guide care. The doctor no longer really controls health care, as in the days of solo practice, but, when it comes to quality, the doctor is still held accountable. When the researchers study quality, they focus on the behavior of the physician. When the Quality Assurance Committee meets, it reviews the performance of the physician. When the payers and the regulators turn on their searchlights, they want doctors in their glare. Control is shifting, structure is shifting, the pattern of care is shifting; but accountability is not.
This passage prefaces a landmark report on the application to health care of quality improvement methods used successfully in other industries.
First Page
1
Last Page
28
Num Pages
28
Volume Number
20
Issue Number
1-2
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Recommended Citation
William M. Sage, Kathleen E. Hastings & Robert A. Berenson,
Enterprise Liability for Medical Malpractice and Health Care Quality Improvement,
20
Am. J.L. & Med.
1
(1994).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1762