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Medical errors in Japan prosecuted

Respiratory Care Weekly, December 6, 2006

Think you've got it bad when someone on your watch commits a medical error that could lead to administrative, JCAHO, and even civil court proceedings? It may be worse in Japan, according to a research project by Robert B. Leflar, a law professor at the University of Arkansas. There prosecutors can get involved, and healthcare workers can go to jail for medical errors. While both systems keep medical workers on their toes, Leflar says that both systems could stand to learn from each other en route to improving healthcare quality.

"In the United States, errant physicians and hospitals fear malpractice lawyers. In Japan, the greater concerns are whistleblowers, the media, and the police," says Leflar, who spent 2005-2006 teaching law in Japan and now teaches at the University of Arkansas. "In Japan, the weakness of peer review and professional discipline structures; the lack of mandatory hospital accreditation; the absence of objective, hospital-by-hospital statistics on outcomes of medical treatment; and the relative infrequency of civil malpractice litigation enhance the social importance of criminal law as a way of increasing transparency in the medical world."

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