The mandatory reporting of health practitioners' professional competence and conduct is an important step forward in the promotion of patients' rights. The passage of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (title IV of Public Law 99-660) established the National Practitioner Data Bank to collect and release information on health professionals. Dissatisfied with the limitations of the Data Bank, some states have enacted legislation to ensure that malpractice information and disciplinary actions are reported. The state of Michigan recently passed its own series of bills related to health professional licensure and discipline. Health professionals and consumers differ in their reactions to these state and national efforts.
Passage of the Health Care Improvement Act (HCQIA) was partly in reaction to the growing number of malpractice claims and medical lawsuits, a number that continues to call for legislative reform. Testifying at a Congressional public hearing, one consumer rights advocate quoted a Harvard medical study on the increasing incidence of malpractice, "One hospital patient dies every 6 minutes in this country from malpractice, and that translates to 100,000 deaths and 300,000 serious injuries . . . " (U.S. Congress, 1994, p. 65). The dollar amounts of medical malpractice awards also continues an upward trend; the median malpractice award of $356,000 in 1994 jumped to $500,00 in 1995 (U.S. Congress, 1996, p. 231). Prior to the passage of the HCQIA, health care professionals could often evade detection of their criminal records by simply moving to another state to practice. Also, physician peer reviews and hospitals were inadequate and inconsistent in their responses to malpractice offenders due to the fear of lawsuits.
HCQIA provides three means of protection for both hospitals and consumers. Physicians, peer review committees, and hospitals are provided with immunity against lawsuits for damages, if it...