Experts advocate tort reforms that go beyond damage caps.(Practice Trends)

ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- Traditional tort reform measures like damage caps won't address some of the fundamental problems with the medical liability system, experts said at a meeting on patient safety and medical liability sponsored by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.

To deal with the current malpractice situation, the medical community needs to address the reasons why people sue--injuries, unmet expenses, and anger, said Lucian L. Leape, M.D., of the department of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.

"The main reason most people sue is because they are angry at the physician," Dr. Leape said. But the current system and the most commonly proposed reforms, such as damage caps, don't address the need to increase disclosure of errors to patients or incentivize physicians to offer apologies.

In the current tort system, filing a lawsuit is often the only way that patients feel they can get information about what happened to them or impose a penalty on the physician, said Michelle Mello, Ph.D., also of the department of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health. But this process often fails to secure an admission of responsibility or ...