الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Medical malpractice claims have been the scope of many studies worldwide. The reasons for the increasing trend have been clarified. The most important among those reasons is the unsatisfactory outcome of the medical service in addition to the increasing patients’ awareness of their rights to compensation for any harm.
Physicians are trying hard to find ways to improve medical care for the sake of their patients and to limit the negative impacts of malpractice litigations at the same time. Proper documentation is one of the most important methods of preserving the rights of both the physician and the patient.
The present study described both the characteristics of medical malpractice litigations against health care providers in Alexandria and the documentation system in Alexandria Main University Hospital (AMUH).
First: data were collected in a specially designed sheet from 80 medico-legal liability claims that were issued against health care providers in Alexandria during the years 2015 - 2017. The study showed that 46 malpractice lawsuits were raised during the year 2017 followed by the year 2016 (24 lawsuits) and the least recorded malpractice suits were in the year 2015 (10 lawsuits).
The plaintiffs were the patients themselves in 58.8% of all claims, while the patients’ relatives raised the remaining claims due to either death or incompetence of the patients.
The highest percentage of the patients (38.75%) was in the age group 20 – ≤ 40 years. There was male predominance (65%) while females represented (35%) with a ratio of 1.86:1.
In the present study, 21.3% of the studied patients died in the course of medical care while 48.7% ended with residual damage that cannot be legally classified as permanent infirmity. Those who had evident permanent infirmity were about 6.3% of cases and 23.7% of patients were eventually fully recovered. Permanent infirmities in the studied cases ranged from 30% on surgical removal of both left ovary and fallopian tube up to 65% for an above elbow amputation.
Nearly half of the studied cases (53.75%) were reported from private healthcare sectors, followed by governmental (23.75%) and university (teaching) hospitals (18.75%) while only 3.75% of reported cases were from military hospitals.
The operating room was the location of the incident in nearly two-thirds of the alleged malpractice claims (68.75%). Around 23.75% of the claims involved more than one place such as the operating room in addition to the ward (where postoperative follow up took place).
Nearly two-thirds of the claims (66.25%) involved an accusation of a single physician. The maximum number of accused physicians in a single case was seven that makes the total number of accused physicians in the studied claims 124 and the majority of them (89.5%) were males.