The malpractice crisis and the rate of actual malpractice.

In summary, the major concern of healthcare providers regarding malpractice should be its impact on patient welfare and its reduction to an irreducible minimum, rather than concern for physicians' insurance, etc. Medicine, rather than acting defensively, should provide leadership in reducing the malpractice toll on patients. Primary remedial steps should involve the prevention of patient injury and/or death. Actual malpractice is an enormous public health problem with a yearly morbidity of approximately 350,000 patients, and a yearly mortality of approximately 50,000 patients. Effective measures would not only save lives and improve patient welfare but would eliminate enormous healthcare expenditures. The way to reduce malpractice costs, direct and indirect, is to reduce malpractice.