Conference "The new standard of assessing the extent of a personal injury. HBT Index System"

Organized by: Polish Association of Insurance Medicine, Polskie Towarzystwo Medycyny Sądowej i Kryminologii
Place: Supreme Court Building, pl. Krasińskich 2/4/6, Warsaw
Date: 24th September 2014

Polish Association of Insurance Medicine along with the Polish Association of Forensic Medicine and Criminology (Polskie Towarzystwo Medycyny Sądowej i Kryminologii) are happy to invite the public to participate in the scientific conference: „The new standard of assessing the extent of a personal injury – HBT system index”.

Currently the assessment of the reimbursement to the injured party, by both the insurers and the courts, is mainly based on the health impairment percentage table developed by the Social Insurance Institution. Unfortunately it is a unidimensional tool that allows only the assessment of permanent function impairment of a particular organ or system. It does not refer in any way to the other issues which should be included in the final reimbursement according to the article 444 and 445 of the civil code. That is why it was essential to develop a better tool that allows objective, multidimensional and repetitive assessment of the extent of a personal injury which accounts for the circumstances mentioned in the civil law and the Evidence Based Medicine rules at the same time. The reason for this is the reality of the modern science which values reliable tests allowing for finding the best and scientifically proved solution of a given problem and then its practical implementation. Evidence Based solutions step out of a classic medicine towards other fields of science, especially those incorporating medical knowledge, science and law.

HBT system – Human Body Trauma Index has been developed thanks to the cooperation between PAIM, Polish Association od Forensic Medicine and Criminology with the simultaneous IT support from the Uselab. The system incorporates all the important factors as far as reimbursement is concerned: the age and the sex of the injured, accident information, the role of the injured, first aid administered to the injured, health impairment, body trauma, severity and extent of the trauma, complications, prognosis, permanent and temporary function impairment, influence of the permanent diseases and previous trauma on the present situation, timespan and nuisance of the treatment, the level of pain and suffering due to the injury, the change of life quality, the extent of necessary help towards the injured and incapability to work.

The system allows for individualized assessment of important circumstances which might be influential to the extent of the harm and present consistent attitude resulting in comparable size of the reimbursement in similar cases. What is more, the project can be utilized by the each subject interested in damage liquidation – the injured patient, a proxy, insurers, medical examiners, court experts and courts themselves.

HBT Index project assumptions and pilot study results conducted in the chosen disctrict courts along with the examples of medico-legal assessment reports will be presented during the Conference.

Prof. Jarosław Berent
Dr Krzysztof Grzyliński