Chapter 4.A.3: Approaches to Improving Quality of Care

For more on legal and market approaches to health care quality, see Symposium, Quality: Where is the Incentive, 22(2) Health Aff. (March 2003).

On the impact that health insurance payment reform can have on patient safety, see Tom Baker & Charles Silver, How Liability Insurers Protect Patients and Improve Safety, 68 DePaul L. Rev. 209 (2019); Andrew M. Ryan, Improving Patient Safety through Policy: Is Payment Reform up to the Task, 68 DePaul L. Rev. 333 (2019).

Note 3: The National Practitioner Data Bank

For analysis and critique of the NPDB reporting system, see Katharine A. Van Tassel, Blacklisted: The Constitutionality of the Federal System for Publishing Reports of "Bad" Doctors in the National Practitioner Data Bank, 33 Cardozo L. Rev. 2031 (2012); Teresa M. Waters, et al., How Useful is the Information Provided by the National Practitioner Data Bank?, 29(8) Joint Commission J. Qual. & Safety 416 (2003); Robert E. Oshel, Thomas Croft, and John Rodak Jr., The National Practitioner Data Bank: The First 4 Years, 110(4) Pub. Health Reps. 383 (1995); John E. Rolph, David Pekelney, and Kimberly McGuigan, Amending the National Practitioner Data Bank Reporting Requirements: Are Small Claims Predictive of Large Claims, 30(4) Inquiry 441 (1993); Fitzhugh Mullan et al, The National Practitioner Data Bank: Report From the First Year, 268(1) JAMA 73 (1992); Elisabeth Ryzen, The National Practitioner Data Bank: Problems and Proposed Reforms, 13(4) J. Leg. Med. 409 (1992).

For more on reporting of physician misconduct and its impact on settlement, see E. Helland, Bargaining in the Shadow of the Website: Disclosure’s Impact on Medical Malpractice Litigation, 12 Am. L. & Econ. Rev. 423 (2010); Matthew E. Brown, Redefining the Physician Selection Process and Rewriting Medical Malpractice Settlement Disclosure Webpages, 31 Am. J. L. & Med. 479 (2005); Teresa M. Waters et al, Impact of the National Practitioner Data Bank on Resolution of Malpractice Claims, 40(3) Inquiry 283 (2003).

On reporting failures at the state and federal level, see Nadia N. Sawicki, State Peer Review Laws as a Tool to Incentivize Reporting to Medical Boards, 15 SLU J. Health L. & Pol’y 97 (2021).

Note 4: The Information Explosion

On modernizing quality regulation in the information age, see Kristin Madison, Donabedian’s Legacy: The Future of Health Care Quality Law and Policy, 10 Ind. Health L. Rev. 325 (2013); Symposium, 31 J. Leg. Med. 9 (2010); Kristin Madison, Regulating Health Care Quality in an Information Age, 40 U.C. Davis L. Rev. (2007); William M. Sage, Regulating Through Information: Disclosure Laws and American Health Care, 99 Colum. L. Rev. 1701 (1999).

For studies on the efficacy and impact of information reporting, Jeffrey H. Silber, When Public Reporting Misleads the Public: The Case of Medicare's Hospital Compare Mortality Model, 68 DePaul L. Rev. 407 (2019); D. Brauner at al, Does Nursing Home Compare Reflect Patient Safety In Nursing Homes?, 37(11) Health Affairs 170 (2018) (finding a “weak and inconsistent relationship”); Symposium, Patients’ & Consumers’ Use of Evidence, 35 Health Aff. 563 (2016); Ashish K. Jha & Arnold M. Epstein, The Predictive Accuracy of the New York State Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery Report-Card System, 25(3) Health Aff. 844 (June 2006) (finding no impact); David Dranove et al., Is More Information Better? The Effects of “Report Cards” on Health Care Providers, 111 J. Pol. Econ. 555 (2003) (finding negative impact by prompting physicians and hospitals to avoid sicker or more severe cases); Mark Chassin, Achieving and Sustaining Improved Quality, 21(4) Health Aff. 40 (July 2002) (finding some impact).