A San Francisco man has won a $5.1 million malpractice settlement from the city after the staff at a municipal hospital botched his treatment for acute renal failure.

The recently launched Health Care Notification Network (HCNN) will speed FDA safety alerts to physicians by e-mail. Insurance companies expect the system to cut the risk of malpractice litigation.

Adverse drug reactions—or interactions—can increase your exposure to a malpractice lawsuit. New initiatives are underway to let doctors know about potential dangers more quickly than ever.

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.