Roundtable: Impact of EHRs on Malpractice, Part VI

Moderator: Sharona Hoffman

Professor, Case Western Reserve University

Michael S. Kelton, Esq.

Partner, Abrams Fensterman

Todd R. Bartos, Esq.

Shareholder, Stevens & Lee

Lori Abel Meyerhoffer, JD, MD

Partner, Yates, McLamb & Weyher, LLP

In the final segment of our roundtable on electronic health records and malpractice, panelists discuss if EHRs will increase the costs of litigation.

Todd Bartos, Esq., defense trial lawyer with Stevens & Lee, pointed out that many EHR vendors includes language in the contract that protects them from getting dragged into lawsuits. Plus, doctors are a better target.

“If you make it about medicine and righting a wrong and people didn’t take their time, versus getting into the weeds of how a system gets designed, they’re better off,” he explained.

Already litigation in malpractice is more expensive, according to Lori Abel Meyerhoffer, JD, MD, a partner at Yates, McLamb and Weyher, LLP, and it’s not just from EHRs, some of it is from doctors using tablets and smartphones to help treat patients.

“We’ve had numerous cases we’ve had to expend tremendous resources and forensic experts to image our computers, image our smartphones,” she said. “That is just a terrifically expensive process and one that we repetitively have used.”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5