The National Conference of Insurance Legislators at its annual winter meeting approved a Patient Safety Model Act requiring reporting of health care providers' errors.
The measure approved at NCOIL's conference in San Diego last week complements a resolution passed two years ago dealing with the legal process reform for medical malpractice litigation by calling for "reasonable" caps on pain and suffering damages.
Candace Thorson, NCOIL deputy executive director, said the lawmakers felt after the tort reform resolution that the whole medical malpractice issue embraced other facets such as medical errors and overall patient safety protection.
The model legislation calls for hospitals and other provider institutions to report medical errors and allow the public access to summaries of those reports.
Among the amendments approved at the San Diego meeting were three advocated by the Consumers Union that called for more reporting of medical errors on an individual institution basis, rather than merely an aggregate one.
Aggregate error information is of little use to consumers and does little to encourage medical facilities to improve the quality of their care, said a Consumers Union spokesperson.
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