How to Protect Physician Whistleblower—Patient Advocates—From Retaliation to Benefit Patients:A Legal Analysis Regarding Summary Suspension,Retaliation,Peer Review and Remedies

• 作者: Bartholomew Lee Gil Mileikowsky MD
• 来源期刊: 美中法律评论:英文版
• 学科: 政治法律
• 关键词: PATIENT safety preventable adverse events due process SHAM peer review RETALIATION against WHISTLEBLOWER NPDB blacklisting Health Care Quality Improvement Act healthcare cost
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（1）
• 页码范围: 21-33
• 页数: 13页
• 分类号: D

摘要

Public safety provides new statutory protections for whistleblowers:Legislation enacted in order to address medical error and failures of hospital quality systems has paradoxically created mechanisms that are used to silence physicians and other caregivers who seek to protect patient safety by reporting breaches of professional quality and integrity.The laws enacted to protect patients can be and are currently misused to silence whistleblowers through punitive legal proceedings against patient safety advocates.Summary suspensions,deprivation of due process,and transfer of adjudicative authority to the hands of the institutions that most require oversight undermines transparency and patient advocacy.A modest set of statutory amendments,prophylactic and remedial,especially to prevent premature reporting of summary suspensions,can counteract these inequities and rebalance the House of Medicine so as to protect both patients and those who would seek to ensure their safety,so it may do no harm.