Do Written Disclosures of Serious Events Increase Risk of Malpractice Claims? One Health Care System's Experience

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Law
• Medical Malpractice
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Pennsylvania ACT 13 of 2002 mandated written and verbal disclosure of serious events.
• The impact of this disclosure mandate on malpractice claims and compensation costs was previously undetermined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the association between mandated serious event disclosures and malpractice claims.
• To assess the relationship between serious event disclosures and malpractice compensation costs.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 1,587,842 patient admissions at UPMC hospitals (May 2002 - June 2011).
• Examined 15,028 serious event disclosures and 1,302 malpractice claims.
• Used matched analysis to compare disclosed versus undisclosed claims, adjusting for harm level and claim category.

Main Results:

• No significant increase in malpractice claims per 1000 admissions was observed with increased disclosures (0.62-1.03).
• Disclosed events were associated with 2.71 times higher compensation payouts than undisclosed events (95% CI, 1.56-4.72).
• Higher harm levels (H and I) were independently linked to significantly higher payouts (11.15 times) compared to lower harm levels (A-D) (95% CI, 2.30-54.07).

Conclusions:

• Mandated serious event disclosure in Pennsylvania did not lead to an overall rise in malpractice claims.
• Disclosed events, when controlling for harm severity, incurred higher compensation payments than undisclosed events.
• Findings suggest transparency in serious events may influence litigation outcomes and compensation, even without increasing claim frequency.