Medical specialities with a higgher proportion of malpractice litigations in Catalonia between 2005-2015

Abstract

A medical error or adverse effect (AE) is a fault that occurs during the delivery of health care that has caused damage to the patient. In Spain, the incidence of patients with AE related with healthcare was a 9.3% and about a 42.8% of the AE are avoidable. Spanish data suggest that we are facing an everyday problem. Each country has a different health, economic and legal situation. Medical malpractice could be defined as a misguided exercise or practice without skill by a physician or other professional, causing damage to the health or the condition of the patient. It has some legal consequences; it is used the term of medical responsibility or liability: moral, civil, criminal and administrative. It is extremely problematic to establish common standards between countries. Consequently, it is needed a specific analysis of the situation, in order to determine the context of AE in our country Objective: The main aim of this study is to determinate which is the specialty or group of medical specialties with a highest proportion of malpractice legal procedures during, regardless of the used courts: civil, penal, etc Methods: This is an observational, longitudinal and retrospective study. Secretaries all around Catalan court will use TEMIS database in order to identify all judgments about medical liability in Catalonia during 2005-2015. Secretaries will send us this information in an anonymous way, deleting all persona data about doctors and patients