The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005
This law was established for voluntary and confidential reporting to be used by
physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare entities to report medical errors into a
confidential database. It allows these medical reporting errors to be prohibited from
being used in a civil liability cases, if they are reported voluntarily. Studies have
shown that organizations who support error disclosure have a decreased in the
number of lawsuits and compensation payouts (Jerrard, 2006). It was passed by the
House of Representatives July 27, 2005.
The National Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Act of 2005
This law is an extension of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act and
“promote a culture of safety within hospitals, health systems, clinics, and other sites
of healthcare.” It is also known as the MEDiC Act and is used to oversee patient
safety database and provides funding to healthcare providers with systems to disclose
medical error to patients and offer fair compensation to the patients if the provider is
at fault. To reduce the amount of money spent in legal costs for malpractice claims,
the MEDiC Act requires medical liability insurance companies and providers to
apply a percentage of their savings toward the reduction of medical errors. The main
goal of this law is to reduce the fear in physicians and healthcare agencies to report
medical error. Often times, medical errors are not reported for fear of lawsuits
(Jerrard, 2006).
The Medication Error Prevention Act of 2000
This law encourages the use of a voluntary reporting system known as Med MARx,
an anonymous internet based system for healthcare providers to share experiences
regarding medical errors (Schulman and Kim, 2000).
All of these laws are used in conjunction with each other to improve patient safety
and reduce the number of medical errors that could adversely affect patient safety.
Regulatory
The Joint Commission
The Joint Commission develops standards with the help of medical professionals,
subject matter experts, and government agencies to improve patient safety and
quality of care. Their standards are used to help measure, asses and improve
