2018 Articles

The Need to Foster and Protect Physician Group Practice Malpractice Prevention Programs

Swidler, Robert N.

Hospitals in New York are required to maintain malpractice prevention programs, which include a quality assurance committee, procedures to check the credentials and competence of medical staff, the collection of information about negative outcomes, continuing medical educational programs, reporting obligations, and more. New York Law also provides for confidentiality of information generated through such malpractice prevention programs, and immunity to peer review participants.

This article notes that many physician practices in New York are extremely large, and have or could institute the same rigorous malpractice prevention program as hospitals are required to have. It argues that physician practices that do so should be afforded the same confidentiality and immunity protection as hospitals.

Keywords: medical malpractice; physician peer review, health care confidentiality; health policy