Medical negligence

Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error. Claims of medical malpractice, when pursued in US courts, processed as civil torts. Sometimes an act of medical malpractice will also constitute a criminal act, as in the case of the death of Michael Jackson.

Medical professionals may obtain professional liability insurances to offset the costs of lawsuits based on medical malpractice. Further establishment of conditions of intention or malice may be applied where applicable.

Back in 1984, the extrapolated statistics from relatively few records in only several states of the United States estimated that between 44,000-98,000 people annually die in hospitals because of medical errors. Much work has been done since then, including work by the author of that study who moved on from those low estimates back in the 1990s. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently says that 75,000 patients die annually, in hospitals alone, from infections alone - just one cause of harm in just one kind of care setting. From all causes there have been numerous other studies, including "A New, Evidence-based Estimate of Patient Harms Associated with Hospital Care" by John T. James, PhD that estimates 400,000 unnecessary deaths annually in hospitals alone. Using these numbers, medical malpractice is the third leading cause of death in the United States, only behind heart disease and cancer. Less than one quarter of care takes place in hospitals. Across all care settings the numbers are higher.

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