By 2005, the Philadelphia suburb of Montgomery County had reached a malpractice stalemate of sorts, a scenario likely familiar in other regions of the country, with mone of the parties involved particularly satisfied.

 

  Malpractice lawsuits were taking as many as eight years to work through the court system, says Regina Sturgis, director of patient advocacy at Abington Memorial Hospital. “That length of time can be very distressing for not only the patients and families, but also the caregivers involved in the case,“ she says.

 

  So Montgomery County's physicians and lawyers, represented by the local medical society and local bar association, teamed up to pilot a mediation program at Abington, a not-for-profit hospital with 665 licensed beds. The initiative, launched in early 2008, strives to combine disclosure and mediation to compensate for unexpected outcomes. The process can begin nearly immediately, Sturgis says.

 

  “People can start to get on with their life and heal,“ she says. “And that's also true for the caregivers involved. It's devastating for the caregivers, when something happens. Nobody goes to work thinking, 'I want to make a mistake today or hurt somebody.'“

 

  While the possibility of federal tort reform is periodically floated, including in President Obama's September speech to Congress, it's still the states and local communities like Montgomery County that remain the default malpractice laboratories in the ongoing struggle to resolve the nation's liability dilemma. How best to balance patient safety and fair compensation, without driving up defensive medicine costs and triggering a physician exodus to other states? Contact for complete article