[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 98 (Thursday, July 15, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8222-S8223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PATIENT SAFETY

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about patient safety.
  There is bipartisan legislation pending in the Senate that is 
absolutely critical to reducing healthcare errors and increasing 
healthcare quality. It is S. 720, the Patient Safety and Quality 
Improvement Act.
   The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee reported this 
bill to the floor in November of last year. It was approved in the 
committee by a unanimous voice vote, and it is past time for the Senate 
to vote on and pass this important legislation.
   This patient safety legislation is an important step toward building 
a culture of safety and quality in health care.
   The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act would create a 
framework through which hospitals, doctors, and other health care 
providers can work to improve health care quality in a protected legal 
environment. The bill would grant privilege and confidentiality 
protections to health care providers to allow them to report health 
care errors and ``near misses'' to patient safety organizations. The 
bill also would allow these patient safety organizations to collect and 
analyze the data confidentially.
   After analyzing the data, patient safety organizations would report 
on trends in healthcare errors and offer guidance to providers on how 
to eliminate or minimize these errors. Some of this takes place today, 
but much more

[[Page S8223]]

information could be collected and analyzed if providers felt confident 
that reporting these errors did not increase the likelihood that they 
or their colleagues would be sued for honest mistakes.
   This legislation would not permit anyone to hide information about a 
medical mistake. Under the bill, lawyers could still access medical 
records and other information that would normally be discoverable in a 
legal proceeding. However, the bill would ensure that the analysis of 
that information by patient safety organizations would take place on a 
separate track in a protected legal environment.
   Healthcare providers will be much more likely to share information 
about honest mistakes and how to prevent them if they have some 
assurance that the analysis of their information won't result in a tidy 
package of information that a personal injury lawyer could use against 
them in court.
   Errors in medical treatment take place far too often today. 
Unfortunately, providers live in fear of our unpredictable and unfair 
medical litigation system, and this legal fear inhibits efforts to 
address the root causes of health care errors. Without appropriate 
protections for the collection and analysis of patient safety data, 
providers are unwilling to report mistakes and errors, which is one of 
the reasons that health care quality today is not what it could be.
   Litigation does nothing to improve quality or safety. The constant 
threat of litigation instead stifles honest analysis of why health 
errors happen. This is just one more reason why we need wholesale 
reform of our medical litigation system. We need to foster alternatives 
that restore trust between patients and providers and result in fair 
and reliable outcomes for both parties. We need to scrap the current 
system, not just cap it.
   But until we do so, we should take whatever steps we can to create 
an environment that protects the collection and analysis of patient 
safety data so that providers can learn from their mistakes and prevent 
them from happening in the future.
   The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act is one of these 
steps. Yesterday, our committee chairman, Senator Gregg, asked for 
unanimous consent that we move to consideration of this legislation on 
the Senate floor. This is the third time he has done so. Each time, he 
has been blocked by our colleagues in the minority, even though the 
committee of jurisdiction was unanimous in its support for the bill.
   My colleagues in the minority keep talking about problems with 
healthcare quality--just like they keep talking about the loss of 
American jobs. However, talk is cheap when their actions don't match up 
to their words. If they are really so concerned about improving 
healthcare in our Nation, why would they object to a bill that would 
reduce errors and improve patient safety, particularly a bipartisan 
bill with unanimous committee support? If they are really so concerned 
about American workers and jobs, why won't they let a bill improving 
the Nation's job-training system go to conference?
   This is another example of what is happening--or not happening here 
in the Senate. We have a bill--a bipartisan bill--that will help 
workers get back to work or find better jobs. This bill will equip our 
workforce with the skills necessary for America to compete--and 
succeed--in the global economy. It reauthorizes and improves the 
Nation's job training and employment system created under the Workforce 
Investment Act.

  The Workforce Investment Act provides job training and employment 
services to more than 900,000 unemployed workers each year. Just like 
the patient safety legislation, this bipartisan bill passed out of the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously. We passed 
it on the Senate floor by unanimous consent last November. That is as 
bipartisan as you can possibly get.
  Where is the bill now? We can't get a conference committee appointed 
to resolve differences with the House. If we really want to take care 
of jobs and workers in this country, we should appoint conferees for 
the Workforce Investment Act legislation. I can only conclude that my 
Colleagues on the other side of the aisle are more concerned with 
election year politics than helping American workers, or improving 
patient safety.
  There are differences between Republicans and Democrats on most of 
the big issues facing our Nation. If my colleagues in the minority want 
to bottle up legislation with which they disagree, that is their 
prerogative. But that is not what I am talking about.
  What we have here are a few members of the minority party holding up 
bipartisan bills that receive unanimous approval in committee, and 
holding up conferences on bills that receive unanimous support on the 
Senate floor.
  The only logical conclusion I can make is that these roadblocks are 
based on politics, not policy, and that is a shame.
  Right now, the Senate floor reminds me of the airspace above a busy 
airport. We have got a number of bipartisan bills lined up for their 
final approach, but our colleagues in the minority are holding these 
bills up and won't allow them to land. The tactics of my colleagues in 
the minority give new meaning to the term ``holding pattern.''
  It is time for our Democrat colleagues to break this holding pattern 
so that we can pass these bipartisan bills like the Patient Safety Act 
and the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. These are not 
only bipartisan bills, but they received unanimous committee support.
  Let us set election politics aside for a moment. These are bipartisan 
bills, so no one party can claim credit for their passage. The Patient 
Safety Act was introduced by the distinguished Senator from Vermont, 
Mr. Jeffords, who is the lone independent in the Senate. So this bill 
is more than bipartisan.
  My distinguished colleague from Nevada, Senator Reid, suggested 
yesterday that we should just approve the House-passed patient safety 
bill. He suggested that he should just take up the House bill, rather 
than pass the Senate bill, because the Members of the House are the 
true experts on complex legislation like this.
  I wonder if my colleague's opinion would be the same on medical 
liability reform. After all, the expert legislators in the House have 
sent us some excellent legislation to reform our medical litigation 
system. Perhaps we should stop working on this in the Senate and just 
approve the House-passed bill.
  Or perhaps we could take up the House-passed bill on the Workforce 
Investment Act. I know my Democrat colleagues with whom I have worked 
to craft a Senate version are confident that our version is the 
superior one, but if Senator Reid believes that the Members of the 
House are superior legislators, perhaps he could convince my Democrat 
coauthors that we ought to just take up the House bill and pass it. Or, 
as I have suggested, why don't we just agree to go to conference with 
the House and come up with the best possible bill we can, one that 
reflects the expertise of Members of both the Senate and the House?
  I hope our colleagues in the minority will agree to take 2 hours of 
their time to debate and vote on the bipartisan Patient Safety Act. Two 
hours is not a lot of time, and it is the least we can do on such an 
important piece of legislation. We have spent hours upon hours working 
on this bill in committee and crafting a bill that received unanimous 
bipartisan support. Let us spend 2 more hours on the Patient Safety Act 
so that we improve the quality and safety of healthcare in America.

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