Jeff Goldsmith on Malpractice Shelter for EMR Use- It's a No Brainer

A major missing piece of health reform has been the Democrats’ inability or unwillingness to address reducing physicians’ malpractice exposure as a way of containing health costs. The President actually vowed to address it in his address to the AMA last summer and then… virtually nothing in either version of health reform legislation.

So what to do?  In the ARRA (stimulus) legislation, Congress provided financial incentives for physicians to become “meaningful users” of electronic health records, which will help them practice safer and more effective medicine.  Why not enhance those incentives by providing meaningful physician users special “safe harbor”  from malpractice liability if they use qualifying EMR tools (which contain health alerts, practice guidelines, drug interaction warnings, etc.)?  This approach avoids the damage award caps which have scared Democratic legislators away.  It’s a no brainer…