Long Beach medical malpractice lawyer

Medical malpractice in the United States

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, are 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.

Frequency and cost of medical errors

Back in 1984, the extrapolated statistics from relatively few records in only several states of the United States estimated that between 44,000 and 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.

Another study notes that about 1.14 million patient-safety incidents occurred among the 37 million hospitalizations in the Medicare population over the years 2000–2002. Hospital costs associated with such medical errors were estimated at $324 million in October 2008 alone.

Approximately 17,000 malpractice cases are filed in the U.S. each year.