Medical malpractice is professional negligence by a health care provider that causes injury to the patient. A successful medical malpractice claim results when the evidence and testimony of witnesses demonstrates the care the patient received was less than accepted standards of the medical community.
Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said lawmakers largely have failed to enact patient safety reforms recommended by a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine or IOM that found that medical errors cost the United States $17 billion to $29 billion a year
