Lessons learned from implementing a principled approach to resolution following patient harm

Communication and resolution programs have emerged as central to organizational responses to serious patient harm events, with demonstrated evidence of patient safety and medicolegal outcome improvements within a handful of healthcare systems. Hospitals, including those with open medical staffs, have struggled implementing communication and resolution programs, particularly around the components supporting resolution. Here, we describe our lessons learned early after implementing the resolution (“R”) component of Communication and Optimal Resolution, a comprehensive contemporary communication and resolution program at MedStar Health, a large community health system in the United States. MedStar Health is a regional healthcare system with 10 hospitals, 250 ambulatory care delivery sites, and 20 diversified businesses in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. MedStar Health initiated Communication and Optimal Resolution implementation in 2015. Our approach to resolution following patient harm yielded seven strategies supporting our resolution process. These included infrastructure and processes to (i) provide immediate support to patients and families, (ii) hold and waive bills, (iii) activate event review processes early to inform resolution, (iv) embrace a paradigm shift in legally defensible cases, (v) develop a communication and resolution program legal community, (vi) accept sacrifices with a principled resolution, and (vii) commit to address challenges with open medical staffs. The resolution process in response to serious patient harm is complex. Our early experience in implementing the “R” of Communication and Optimal Resolution required enhanced infrastructure, embracing the clinician, legal, and insurance communities and instructing them in the principles of communication and resolution program, and a strong organizational commitment to “doing the right thing” for patients and families