The medical lobby has repeatedly proven itself unwilling to learn about and implement quality management systems that can reduce health care costs by 30 to 60 percent while preventing four out of every five malpractice cases.

The medical lobby’s call for caps on malpractice damage awards must therefore be categorically rejected to deny its members relief from the symptoms of the problem that their own willful intransigence is perpetuating.

The rationale for the caps — “frivolous lawsuits” — is also dishonest. Plaintiffs whose suits are found to be frivolous leave the court with nothing. They certainly do not get the pain-and-suffering compensation that the medical lobby’s legislation targets.

The best way to deal with frivolous lawsuits is to enact penalties for plaintiffs and lawyers who knowingly and willfully file them and not by taking away the rights of plaintiffs who suffer horrific damage from slipshod or nonexistent health care quality systems.

Insurers and patients should, in fact, take a much harder line when health care providers cause avoidable problems. “Change Healthcare Organizations from Good to Great,” (Quality Progress, November 2005) reports, “Of hospital-acquired infections, ventilator-acquired pneumonia is the leading cause of death and adds an estimated cost of $40,000 to a typical hospital admission. It has been proven VAP can be virtually eliminated when four key evidence-based best practices, such as elevating the head of the bed, are consistently followed.”

This suggests that any patient who gets VAP should consider not only consider refusing to pay for the cost of treating it but should also talk to a personal-injury lawyer. The problem is avoidable if the hospital follows state-of-the-art procedures and, if the hospital simply chooses not to do so, it should be held accountable for the consequences.