Patient safety incidents (PSIs)—many of them preventable—cost 238,337 lives and $8.8 billion federal tax dollars between 2004 and 2006, a watchdog group reports.

Laws that limit certain damage awards in malpractice cases are limiting insurance premiums, too.

A network of organizations that will collect and analyze data on medical errors and "near-misses" while protecting physician and patient confidentiality may be in place by the end of this year. Federal agencies are in the midst of finalizing regulations to create Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs), whose data would be protected from discovery by malpractice attorneys.

Current protocols can prevent many wrong-site surgeries if they are properly followed, a Pennsylvania watchdog agency reports.

Two Illinois juries recently awarded huge verdicts to injured patients in unrelated malpractice cases.

A Charleston, W. Va., surgeon recently won a $25 million judgment in a defamation lawsuit against a local hospital.

Doctors, lawyers, and administrators at a suburban Philadelphia hospital are collaborating on a mediation program they hope will keep many malpractice cases out of court.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has published an updated series of safety toolkits that apply evidence-based practices to many settings.

Doctors want to learn from each others' mistakes, but concerns about confidentiality and retribution make them leery about formal reporting systems, according to a recent survey. As a result, "much important information remains invisible to institutions and the health care system."

The think tank that developed the Health Savings Accounts is proposing that contracts replace lawsuits to compensate injured patients. These contracts would disregard fault and mandate full disclosure, while accounting for patient compliance and varying degrees of risk.