In light of numerous stories about shortages of doctors, the decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court looks like it will do more harm than good. I can’t say it will change much nationally, since twenty-five other states operate the same way. But it still seems like a step in the wrong direction.

For the first time, the high court recognized that patients can sue hospitals for allegedly granting privileges to doctors with questionable credentials. The unanimous decision adds Minnesota to a list of at least 25 other states that recognize negligent credentialing claims.

In their opinion, justices looked to some of those states when they concluded that hospital peer review committees have a duty to protect patients when they make privileging decisions. Existing peer review confidentiality measures can continue to protect those discussions, but nothing in the law prevents patients from using other outside information to make their cases, the court said. Attorneys say that could mean anything from prior lawsuits and state disciplinary records to divorce papers. [Read the Rest]

Allegedly, we need high medmal awards in order to motivate doctors to do their best and not do bad things to patients. But how many layers of motivation do we need? Weren’t the doctors being sued in this case already plenty motivated not to be sued? Are we supposed to believe that the hospital wasn’t sufficiently motivated?

One might get the impression that there is no real rationale for a lawyer including the hospital except to get at deeper pockets than the doctors have. I’m not the only one who doubts that suing hospitals is going to improve care and prevent medical malpractice:

But in a concurring opinion, Justice G. Barry Anderson was hesitant about the absence of any conflict, given that doctors often are tentative about participating in peer review “aggressively and meaningfully.” Though he agreed that Minnesota law permits patients to sue hospitals for not ensuring doctors’ qualifications, Anderson was “skeptical of the efficacy of negligent credentialing litigation as a method of improving health care.”