Institutionally sponsored mediation and the emerging medical trust movement in the U.S.

This essay identifies the bias that institutional sponsorship of medical mediation introduces and the probability that such bias undermines the ability of such mediation programs to generate trust by patients in physicians and health care institutions. Based on data from an emerging medical trust movement in the U.S., the essay argues that institutionally sponsored medical mediation programs are missing an opportunity to reap the economic benefits of promoting trust through the use of classic mediation techniques. It also identifies new tools for measuring trust that have been created as part of the emerging movement, and it explains how those tools can be used to confirm the economic value of classical mediation while remaining free of much of the bias that appears to plague current institutionally sponsored medical mediation programs.