Escalating health care costs were a major campaign issue during the 2004 election, and some have said that merely limiting lawsuits may not be the solution.
Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine -- a non-profit think tank that seeks to advise on matters related to national health -- suggested that education may be the key to solving the crisis.
President Bush has suggested limits on medical malpractice lawsuit awards to control medical costs. Fineberg, however, says that his proposal does not address the source of the problem: errors in health care delivery.
Errors that lead to lawsuits, among other causes, have greatly increased the cost of health care in America. Approximately one in six Americans is without health insurance, and health care costs have risen to 14.9 percent of GDP.
Fineberg addressed this issue in a speech entitled "Education for High Quality Health Care."
To combat the problem, the Institute of Medicine held a Health Professions Summit in 2002.
The summit's report summarized what hospitals need to accomplish for effective health care: utilizing doctors and nurses' different training backgrounds, providing unique care for each patient and employing new technologies.
"Consistency, standardization and simplification are fundamental in the reduction of error," Fineberg said. "This is why an oxygen tube will not fit anywhere except on the valve of an oxygen tank."
Fineberg mentioned that while technological improvements in the past 25 years have made medical treatment safer and more accessible, the standard of what is "good" has gone up as well.
According to Fineberg, the report did make specific recommendations regarding educational change.
It proposed that the content of some medical and nursing classes could be changed and new subjects should be added.
"We may have to jostle ourselves out of our comfortable way of thinking about education," Fineberg said. "The only way we can do this is if we remember the end result -- higher-quality health care -- is worth it."
The audience, made up primarily of medical students and faculty, seemed impressed with the speech.
"To have someone of Dr. Fineberg's stature come speak to us is wonderful," said Chris Friese, a doctoral student in the School of Nursing. "It will help the two schools reform the health care education program for the future."
The event was organized by the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine.
