James Woods applauds the jury in Superior Court, Warwick, where a settlement had been announced in the negligence lawsuit against Kent Hospital. The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WARWICK, R.I. — Day after day over the past three weeks, actor James Woods’ lawyers were in Kent County Superior Court, presenting evidence they said showed that Kent Hospital’s emergency room staff was so negligent in their treatment of his brother Michael in 2006 that the hospital was to blame for his death.

But Tuesday afternoon, just outside the courthouse doors, a beaming Woods and his mother were arm-in-arm with hospital president Sandra Coletta announcing the withdrawal of the lawsuit and a new joint effort by the hospital and the family to improve patient care.

Besides undisclosed payments to Michael Woods’ surviving daughters and son that James Woods said would leave them financially secure, the settlement included a promise by the hospital to invest $1.25 million over the next five years in the creation of the Michael J. Woods Institute at Kent Hospital.

Michael Woods

Coletta said the institute will be run by a board that will include a Woods family member and be charged with developing new procedures and training for Kent Hospital staffers, starting with the emergency room where Michael Woods died of a heart attack in July 2006.

“We know we’re not perfect at Kent Hospital,” Coletta said. “Mistakes were made. We can do better.”

The news conference announcing the settlement was an astounding turnaround after weeks of testimony during which Woods’ lawyers sought to prove that Kent staff missed or ignored signs of Michael Woods’ impending heart attack and left him unattended on a hospital gurney in a hallway until he was stricken.

Woods, who said he’d filed the suit two years ago with a heart full of anger and bitterness, Tuesday was almost relentless in his praise of Coletta, calling her “very gracious.”

James Woods speaks about his late brother with tears in his eyes while Kent Hospital president Sandra Coletta, left, and Woods’ mother, Martha Dixon, listen.

When reporters began questioning Coletta about whether the hospital had erred in its handling of Michael Woods’ case, she got out the words “there’s no question mistakes were made” when Woods abruptly cut her off.

“Let’s not rub anyone’s nose in anything,” he said. Coletta had already apologized to his family, Woods said.

“They did do it [apologized] and people don’t do it,” Woods said. “I don’t want to put her in the position of saying it twice.”

Woods said the impetus for the settlement came Monday night, with a phone call from Coletta. In that call, he said he heard something he’d never heard from Kent Hospital before, someone saying she was sorry for his family’s loss.

Actor James Woods, who grew up in Warwick, hugs his nephew Peyton Woods in Superior Court after reaching a settlement with Kent Hospital in the negligence lawsuit over his brother’s 2006 death at the hospital.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

They decided to meet face to face. “You could see the attorneys sitting there with their teeth clenched,” he said, when the outlines of the settlement began to take shape.

“I’m a betting man,” said Woods, an avid poker player, “and I’m betting she’s sincere. I said, ‘Either she’s sincere, or she’s the best actor at the table.’”

Woods, who grew up in Warwick, was set to take the stand Tuesday morning, but the trial was delayed until 2 p.m. The lawyers used the time to work out the details of the settlement.

Woods said the family’s piece of mind about the agreement was helped when Coletta met his mother, Martha.

“Sandra and my mother had a very personal moment, a mother-to-mother conversation,” Woods said, calling it a “sweet and dear way to express sorrow.”

“It was all I ever needed to see in my life,” Woods said, “one human being saying to another human being ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ ”

Coletta said the plan is for the institute to design “human-centered” policies and protocols to guide hospital staff.

It was the perceived lack of that kind of approach that was the repeated target of Woods’ lawyers in the case. Michael Woods, a two-time Warwick mayoral candidate, was 49 years old when he went to the emergency room at 4:25 p.m. July 26, 2006, complaining of a sore throat and vomiting that came on suddenly. An electrocardiogram showed he had an abnormal heartbeat. He suffered a heart attack at about 7:10 p.m. and was declared dead at 7:30 p.m.

The doctor who treated him, Kelli A. Naylor, testified she’d ordered that he be put on a heart monitor, but that the nursing staff never followed through. Woods was sent to the x-ray department, and when he was brought back to the emergency room, instead of being put in a room, his gurney was parked by a wall near a nurses’ station. It was there he suffered his fatal heart attack.

“Nobody knew where my brother was for the last hour and a half,” Woods said.

Coletta said she’d decided to call Woods and “try to step outside the problem. I thought about what we could do about the situation, look at it differently.”

Hospitals can have flow charts and chains of command, she said, but they are still staffed by human beings who can make mistakes. The Michael Woods Institute’s mission will be to devise ways to create policies that will prevent them from happening, she said.

“Human errors in the health-care setting occur for a number of reasons, but at the root of many of them is poor communication,” she said.

For his part, Woods said the conclusion would give him, if not closure, some piece of mind about the meaning of his brother’s death.

“It makes it possible for me to go to my brother’s grave and ask if I’ve done the right thing,” he said.

Michael Woods Institute at Kent Hospital

The hospital will spend $1.25 million over the next five years to develop policies and procedures to promote patient safety and improve internal communication about patient care, beginning in the emergency room. The effort will be run by a board that will include a Woods family member. The hospital will hire a patient safety officer to coordinate institute efforts.

jhill@projo.com