Studies: frivilous medical lawsuits rare; suits against hospitals improve patient care; malpractice premiums are piddling

Laurie Beacham, communications director with the New Yawk City-based Center for Justice and Democracy, shot this over this morning:

In the last week, two highly respected medical journals – the New England Journal of Medicine and Health Affairs – have published three breakthrough academic articles based on studies that counter deep-rooted myths about medical malpractice litigation in America. These myths have been wrongly perpetuated by the American Medical Association.

We believe these studies are significant enough to redefine the debate about medical malpractice litigation and thought it was important to alert you to them.

Links to information about these articles are as follows:

* The legal system works –payment of frivolous medical malpractice claims is extremely rare, according to the Harvard School of Public Health;

* Litigation against hospitals improves patient safety;

* Malpractice premiums represent a small percentage of doctors' expenses.

Please note that while the AMA has apparently been attempting to spin these groundbreaking studies with inaccurate press releases that, in at least one case, led to an erroneous AP story, we believe these studies speak for themselves.