New York Personal Injury News & NYC Legal Current Events

NYC Judge Receives Grant To Improve Medical Malpractice Process

An innovative New York City judge has received a $3 million grant from the federal government to implement a system that will help improve the New York medical malpractice court system for both doctors and injury victims.

According to the Associated Press, long-time judge Douglas McKeon will continue his new approach to NYC medical malpractice lawsuits, something he calls judge-directed negotiations. In this approach, injury victims and their families are given the opportunity to tell their story, while the judge educates himself on the medical procedures and information he needs to know to make a decision.

The judge, and the Obama administration, hopes that the new approach to medical error trials will help several different facets of the health care system. The hope is that judge-directed negotiations will encourage doctors and hospitals to admit when they’ve made a mistake, help emergency rooms cut back on expensive and unnecessary testing, known as defensive medicine, and help medical mistake victims get the compensation they deserve.

McKeon hears all of the medical malpractice cases in Manhattan and the Bronx and has taken medical courses and reads medical journals in order to keep up-to-date on technology and terminology. He believes he has saved hospitals $50 million in the last year, while also encouraging them not to hide medical errors from patients or to stubbornly insist that they didn’t make mistakes when they did. In fact five major hospitals have joined an early disclosure program that helps patients find out if they were victims of malpractice and helps parties come to fair and private settlements.

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