Malpractice and Credentialing

Malpractice suits are every where these days. Personally, I believe that a good number of them are honest and unfortunate mistakes that a doctor makes. It's just hard when one small mistake by a doctor can make major repercussions. And don't get me started on the lawyer side of things...

But we also know that too many 'accidents' happen in a hospital because the physician doing the procedure really wasn't qualified to do it. This is where credentialing physicians becomes such an important thing.

Malpractice Statistics

I looked up some statistics on MedicalMalpractice.com and the numbers are pretty crazy.

• 98,000 patients may be killed each year from errors
• A California study found that 234,000 injuries and 80,000 deaths were caused by doctor negligence in 1988
• It is estimated that at least 1% of doctors should receive disciplinary action each year

Check out the site for more stats, it's really scary when you go over some of these numbers!

What Can Be Done?

So if there are all of these problems going on in hospitals, what can be done to make it better? Well, on thing that a lot of hospitals are starting to do is credential physicians to make sure they really are qualified to do what they are doing.

How Does Credentialing Physicians Help?

The idea behind credentialing is that not only do doctors and physicians have to have their degree, but they actually have to demonstrate their competency to a group of peers that will evaluate them to see if they really are qualified to do certain procedures. If they don't pass, they are not allowed to do that procedure in that hospital.

There is still a lot of work to be done in this area, but physician credentialing is a great start. As time goes on and methods improve, let's hope that the number of injuries and deaths from negligence goes down.