Each month about a dozen potentially useful medications are added to our formularies. A plethora of scans can be used in various combinations to manage numerous disorders. Patients migrate between the revolving doors of competing corporate health care systems, with great potential for miscommunication. Redundant systems are eliminated by personnel reductions, and the remaining staff must perform the same duties with greater speed. Error in medicine has only a rough relationship to litigation.
Litigation arises most often with persons unhappy with the outcome of their medical care.
Eliminating medical error will not eliminate death, it will not even eliminate untimely death and suffering. Reducing medical error may reduce litigation, but the effect will likely be modest. The main effect of error management on litigation might arise from public education. Reducing error rates would improve the outcome of care, but our methods for measuring those outcomes are very crude. Many factors beyond our control alter clinical outcomes.