미국의 사과법 및 디스클로져법의 의의와 그 시사점

Abstract

Recently in Korea, public interest about patient safety has increased because patient safety incidents occurred continuously. In addition, as the way of coping with medical personnel and medical institutions after occurrence of patient safety incident became controversial, the necessity of introducing apology law and disclosure law was raised. We analyzed the contents of apology law and disclosure law in U.S.A and critically examined the legislative movements in Korea. First, the Apology law requires that a medical personnel provide apology, consolation, sympathy to the patient for discomfort, pain, damage or death, and that the expression of apology shall be inadmissible as evidence of an admission of liability in civil action or administrative proceeding. The Apology law is divided into ‘full apology law’ and ‘partial apology law’ depending on whether mistake, error, fault, liability, and legal liability shall be inadmissible. Meanwhile, Disclosure law enforces or voluntarily enforces the law to communicate with the patient regarding the disclosure of the incident, the cause of incident, the compensation plan, and the measures to prevent the recurrence in the adverse incident that serious harm to the patient. In Korea, the concern about patient safety incidents has been amplified, and as the importance of communication between the medical personnel and patient has been recognized, the revision bill for the “Patient Safety Act”, which adopted the U.S.A apology or disclosure law, was submitted to the National Assembly. The purpose of this study was to critically review the contents of the revised legislation based on the analysis of the apology law and disclosure law in U.S.A. and to provide implications for future legislative direction.