High Profile Malpractice Cases and Reforms

Medical malpractice is a growing crack in the foundation, where everyone sees it spreading, yet no one mentions fixing it. For my AP Research project, I will be exploring high profile malpractice cases in the United States. High profile malpractice cases are lawsuits and medical cases that make public headlines, gain lots of media coverage, and experience a large amount of public attention. I have found a multitude of malpractice cases that have dealt with physicians abusing their power, patients being mistreated, negligence, and other errors that occur in the medical setting. In these cases, pateints can experience horrible outcomes and peoples lives are forever changed. But, in these articles that describe the cases, there is little to no mention on how hospitals and institutions will prevent the recurrence of certain errors and prevent reasons for the malpractice. This leads me into my gap (the gap is the limited research that has been done on an aspect of malpractice cases), which is how there is little to no mention on how there will be systemic improvements (systemic improvements are " fundamental, structural changes to an entire system to improve its overall function, efficiency, and outcomes, rather than just fixing individual problems") (Glossary of Education Reform 2014) to protocols, documentation, and all things medical after malpractice has occurred. I seek to find answers into why there is no mention of reforms that can be implemented, and how hospitals and medical institutions can improve their safety measures, and how patients can be better protected.