Increased hospital scrutiny may not have desired effect, say hospital execs; hospitals may disclose fewer errors

• A new survey of hundreds of executives running hospitals in six states finds a majority object to state laws requiring hospitals to report major and minor medical errors.
• Many expressed concerns that these regulations will actually inhibit full disclosure due to doctors' and administrators' fears of litigation as errors are made public.
• However, the survey of executives from 203 hospitals also found that those in states with mandatory reporting laws already in place were less likely to voice strong objections to these rules, compared to executives in states without such laws on the books.
• According to the National Academy for State Health Policy, 21 states now require some form of mandatory reporting of medical errors.
• These types of regulations "have a dual goal," Weissman said.
• In their 2002-2003 study, Weissman's team conducted frank, confidential interviews with chief executive officers, chief operating officers, and chief financial officers from 203 hospitals in six states.
• Those states included Massachusetts and Colorado (which have mandatory reporting laws that allow for the disclosure of certain information to the public); Pennsylvania and Florida (which have mandatory, but confidential, reporting policies in place); and Georgia and Texas (which had no mandatory reporting laws in place at the time of the survey).
• Specifically, 79 percent of executives surveyed thought non-confidential, mandatory reporting would encourage lawsuits, 69 percent thought it would discourage internal reporting, and 73 percent thought it would end up having either no effect -- or even a negative effect -- on patient safety.
• According to Weissman, that may mean that initial fears about litigation subside as the expected avalanche of lawsuits fails to materialize.
• "We need to do more about collecting data and analyzing it in a systematic way to find out what's going on across the system," Weissman said.