Practitioner Data Bank Public Use Data File is a resource for analyzing medical malpractice claims, hospital disciplinary actions and reports of medical error. The database contains information about compliance issues and allows researchers to identify incidents where a medical board did not take appropriate action.

The database does not name individual doctors or hospitals, nor does it link information to any specific medical provider. It does not contain the amount of any civil settlement. Rather, it uses broad economic, demographic and geographic ranges that make it difficult, if not impossible, to trace information to an individual.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") recently took the database down, summarily and without comment. A number of public interest groups reacted strongly. They consider the database, which is updated quarterly, to be the only credible, comprehensive source of national data about medical malpractice claims.

After the database was dismantled, the deputy director of Public Citizen, a health research organization, wrote to the administrator of HRSA (a division of HHS). Dr. Michael Carome argued that the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 requires the federal government to disclose the information in the database.

HRSA responded by posting a notice on its website stating that removal of the database was a temporary measure and that it will restore the database soon. The agency says that it discovered that users could manipulate the data to identify individual entities, practitioners and patients, so it took the database offline.

Related Resource: Consumer Affairs, "Feds take down malpractice database" Sept. 19, 2011