Health Care Event

Significant Health Care Event The United States health care system has undergone significant changes in history. There are many significant health care events that affected the way the system works today. Given the litigious nature of our current society, even a speculation of medical wrong doing could lead to excessive lawsuits and directly affect health care costs now and in the future. This paper will describe the use of excessive litigation and its affect on the United States health care system. The writer will highlight how society’s use of excessive litigation has had a negative impact on the historical evolution of health care in our society.
Excessive Litigation Excessive litigation poses a threat for all Americans. Our society is tempted by the overwhelming advertisements promoting litigations against health care facilities and medical professionals for almost any claim. Advertisements promoting litigation and multimillion dollar results are placed all throughout information and social media outlets. Even though few cases result in these awards, they encourage lawyers and plaintiffs in the hope that they can win this litigation lottery, and they influence every settlement that is entered into (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002). This ease of litigation and increasing number of claims poses a risk for patients and families that have warranted claims of medical liability to be held up in the court system for years.
Patient Safety
Most health care providers are more reluctant to report simple human errors or problems associated with delivering care because they fear being sued, even if there was no fault or wrongdoing. There is reluctance for medical professionals to get involved in quality of care initiatives. Many quality care initiatives to improve patient care delivery are developed based on the topics of identifying and reducing errors. With the limited error reporting there are no means to identify