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Medical Dispute Committees in the Netherlands: a qualitative study of patient expectations and experiences.

Dijkstra, R.I., Elbers, N.A., Friele, R.D., Pemberton, A. Medical Dispute Committees in the Netherlands: a qualitative study of patient expectations and experiences. BMC Health Services Research: 2022, 22(1), p. Art. nr. 650.
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Background
Health care incidents, such as medical errors, cause tragedies all over the world. Recent legislation in the Netherlands has established medical dispute committees to provide for an appeals procedure offering an alternative to civil litigation and to meet the needs of clients. Dispute committees incorporate a hybrid procedure where one can file a complaint and a claim for damages resulting in a verdict without going to court. The procedure is at the crossroads of complaints law and civil litigation. This study seeks to analyze to what extent patients and family members' expectations and experiences with dispute committees match the goals of the new legislation.

This study shows that participants' expectations and experiences were not always met by the current set up of the dispute committee proceedings. Participants did not feel heard, while they did value the potential for monetary compensation. In addition, some participants did not experience an empowered position but rather a feeling of a power misbalance. The feeling of a power misbalance and not being heard might be explained by existing epistemic injustice, which is a concept that should be carefully considered in processes after health care incidents.