A team led by researchers from Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University will develop and test "safe harbor" standards of care with the aim of reducing the number of tests and procedures performed only to reduce legal liability.
The practice of performing sometimes unnecessary procedures to avoid malpractice claims, also known as defensive medicine, increases healthcare costs and could result in patient harm. There have been attempts to counteract defensive medicine — including the American Board of Internal Medicine's "Choosing Wisely" campaign that encourages discussion of the risks and benefits of diagnostic tests and procedures — but these attempts have not considered liability risks.
A multidisciplinary team from Vanderbilt University's schools of law, management and medicine, as well as researchers from Chicago-based Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Boston-based Harvard Medical School will study how clinicians' fear of litigation affects their treatment decisions, and they will work to develop "safe harbor" standards of care that take into account legal risk as well as patient care.
"Until these liability issues are addressed, fear of litigation will continue to drive providers to perform more tests and procedures than may be truly necessary," said Alan Storrow, MD, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and co-head of the research team.
The three-phase research project is funded by a five-year, $1.7 million-plus grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It will begin this month.