VA Health Care

Trends in Malpractice Claims Can Aid in Addressing Quality of Care Problems Gao ID: HEHS-96-24 December 21, 1995

From fiscal year 1990 to fiscal year 1994, malpractice claims against VA medical centers have steadily increased, from 678 to 978, with payments made to claimants totaling more than $200 million. In 1992, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) entered into an agreement with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) to analyze trends in VA malpractice claims. VA's quality assurance staff, however, are making only limited use of the information being developed by AFIP. Although malpractice claim information is available from the Defense Department, it is not comparable to the malpractice data that VA collects. The main reason for the lack of comparability is the absence of a standard data collection format. Nonetheless, GAO found that DOD information may be useful to VA to draw comparisons in areas in which malpractice claims are being generated, such as incidents related to surgery, diagnosis, and medication.

GAO found that: (1) between FY 1990 and 1994, malpractice claims against VA medical centers (VAMC) increased from 678 to 978 annually and claimants received over $205 million in payments; (2) in 1992, VA entered into an agreement with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) to analyze malpractice claims on a systemwide basis to identify malpractice trends and risk management issues, but VA is not using the information requested from AFIP to address risk management or quality assurance issues; (3) although Department of Defense (DOD) malpractice data can not easily be compared to VA data due to the lack of a standard data collection format, comparisons can be made of the types of problems resulting in malpractice claims against each agency; and (4) DOD malpractice data may help VA identify areas in which malpractice claims are being generated, such as surgery-related incidents.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.