Telephone triage liability: protecting your patients and your practice from harm

By assigning accusations of malpractice to one of three categories, reasonable responses can be initiated. For true accusations regarding medical errors, the case should usually be settled out of court. For false accusations, the written and recorded documentation should be shared with the patient's primary care provider as soon as possible. The physician in turn should share his or her interpretation of the call with the family. This proactive approach usually results in the caller withdrawing the complaint. If a lawyer is already involved, often the claim will be dropped. For accusations of an imperfect call, these usually account for the 5% of cases that go to trial. Once a plaintiffs lawyer is involved, it is unusual for this type of case to be dropped. The defendant's lawyer will need an expert witness to compare the nurse's actual performance to the "good call checklist." In over 80% of these cases, the case will be settled in favor of the physician and nurse by proving their performance met a reasonable standard of care.