The nation's leading physician-owned medical malpractice insurance provider, The Doctors Company, has awarded Lucian L. Leape, M.D. with The Doctors Company Award for the Advancement of Patient Safety.

The award, designed to draw public and industry attention to the importance of patient safety within the medical profession and to recognize physicians who demonstrate leadership in this area, is in honor of Dr. Leape's important leadership contributions to the national patient safety movement.

Dr. Leape was an early advocate of the systems approach to preventing medical error and his 1994 paper, "Error in Medicine," drew national attention to this problem. Dr. Leape's research has focused on the identification and correction of system failures that often contribute to the adverse medical events leading to patient injury.

"Dr. Leape has shifted the national focus from blaming individual caregivers to the importance of redesigning the health systems medical care is delivered in. This new approach to preventing medical error is the foundation of the patient safety movement and has been a major contribution to enhancing patient safety in the American health care system," said David B. Troxel, M.D., medical director for The Doctors Company.

Dr. Leape, an Adjunct Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, has written over 100 peer-reviewed articles identifying where system failures occur within our health system, proposing solutions to improving clinical systems and processes, exploring ways for providers to report and openly discuss medical errors to prevent their recurrence, and identifying common ground for health care professionals, hospitals, patients, payers, and regulators to work together to improve patient safety.

Read more at The Doctors Company.