H.R. 663, "THE PATIENT SAFETY AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT ACT" MARCH 12, 2003
The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act addresses a problem that many of us are familiar with. According to a December 2003 survey by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 42 percent of the public says that they or a family member have experienced a medical error. This bill contains one piece of the puzzle that must be completed in order to reduce medical errors. It would create a voluntary reporting system for the purpose of learning from medical mistakes. Under this voluntary reporting system, health care providers could report information on medical errors to Patient Safety Organizations. These organizations would help providers analyze what went wrong and identify what strategies could prevent future mistakes. It is our intent that providers would take this knowledge and make changes in the health care delivery system to improve care for patients. I also hope that the Secretary of Health and Human Services would use this knowledge to set some basic guidelines that all providers would be required to follow. Patients should be able to expect that providers are adhering to certain safety standards before they seek treatment from a doctor, hospital, or other facility. The best patient safety bill, however, cannot prevent all medical errors. Unfortunately, there will be cases where a medical mistake is made and a patient suffers injury or death as a result. If medical malpractice was involved in these cases, patients and their families should be entitled to seek compensation under a fair and accessible legal system. It would be disingenuous to suggest that the limited legislation before us today could supplant the vital role of legal remedies for medical malpractice. Again, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation in writing this patient safety bill, and I look forward to seeing the improvements that will result when it is implemented.
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