America's Health Care System Is Broken: What Went Wrong and How We Can Fix It. Part 5: Malpractice, Fraud, Waste, and the EMR

Abstract

Although the exact sums can only be estimated, large amounts of money are wasted by the US health care system through fraud and by spending on tests, procedures, and treatments that are of no proven benefit. The adversarial fault-finding malpractice system siphons off large amounts of money from patients to lawyers and legal costs and is a deterrent to system improvement. While electronic records have the potential to improve care and lower costs through information sharing, their current implementation neither improves care nor lowers costs. If care is to be improved while costs are reduced, changes must be made in all these areas.

Keywords: Cost; Electronic medical record; Fraud; Health care system; Malpractice; Waste.