Physicians come out on the winning end of 80% of malpractice claims that end in jury verdicts, according to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

A little more than half of cases reaching trial are dismissed by the court, with only about 5% of malpractice claims actually making it all the way to a jury trial, notes the study, which appears online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The findings weren't all positive for physicians. It takes an average of 19 months to close malpractice claims, the study notes, and 39 months to resolve cases that go to trial and result in verdicts that side with physicians.

"While most claims were ultimately decided in a physician's favor, that resolution came only after months or years," write the study's authors, who based their findings on more than 10,000 closed malpractice claims that occurred between 2002 and 2005.

They say the portion of litigated claims that are not dismissed in court and the length of time required to resolve them "may help explain why malpractice claims undergoing litigation are an important source of concern to physicians."

Daniel Cook

A CT-scan-based, laxative-free "virtual colonoscopy" may be as effective as standard colonoscopy in finding potentially cancerous polyps, according to Massachusetts General Hospital research.

A study of patients scheduled for screening colonoscopy between June 2005 and October 2010 found computer-assisted, laxative-free CT colonography detected more than 90% of adenomas 10mm or larger. CT colonography uses computer-aided systems to "virtually cleanse" views of the colon and analyze images produced via CT scanning as opposed to direct visualization.

The technique doesn't require sedation and can be used in some patients for whom colonoscopy may not be appropriate. In the study, 62% of the study's participants said that laxative-free CT colonography was their preferred screening method, noting it was more comfortable and easier to prepare for in comparison to standard optical colonoscopy.

"While we know that colon screening can save lives, not enough people participate, in part because of the discomfort of the required laxative preparation," says study co-author Michael Zalis, MD, director of CT colonography at MGH Imaging. "In our study, the laxative-free form of CT colonography performed well enough that it might someday become an option for screening, which we hope would increase patient participation."

Mark McGraw

Wrong-site, wrong-patient and wrong-procedure surgery must be prevented at all costs. The 3 steps of the Joint Commission's Universal Protocol make it a thoroughly preventable error, as long as a facility's staff is compliant with those steps.

Administrators at the Reading Hospital Surgicenter at Spring Ridge in Wyomissing, Pa., created an educational video to make sure that their employees are compliant, and consistently so. The 14-minute video follows members of as they interact with patients and each other to verify that their surgical interventions are the right interventions.

Read more about the center's video here, then watch it on Outpatient Surgery's website.

David Bernard

There's no shortage of conferences for you to attend. Tell us in this week's InstaPoll what matters most to you when deciding which ones you'll travel to.

More than 9 out of 10 (92%) of the 325 respondents to last week's poll say they benchmark, with most (71%) doing both internal and external benchmarking. Look for a special report on the benchmarks your facility should be meeting in the June issue of Outpatient Surgery Magazine.