If a malpractice-type incident occurs in a hospital, even before the patient or someone in the patient's family files the case, we could and should get that incident reported to us by the hospital. There's no way of knowing how slow the complaint process really is because no one calculates how long it takes from the time an incident occurs to its final resolution. To get an idea, The Arizona Republic reviewed 30 serious cases, all involving the deaths of patients, over the past decade. The newspaper found that, on average, nearly three years elapsed from the time of death to the time the medical board concluded its review. Once a case is reported, the board, takes an average of 14 months to decide what to do about it.
Many cases take much longer.
The board took five years or longer to resolve 230 cases, according to a computer analysis of complaint records dating to 1970. Seventeen of those cases took 10 years or more to decide. The slow process contributes to a huge backlog of complaints against doctors. The board calculates the backlog at about 1,200 cases, but the Republic's computer analysis showed more than 1,500 cases are still open. The vast majority of unresolved cases concern the quality of medical care a patient has received.