Medico-legal aspects of tort law patient safeguards within the Gelli-Bianco piece of legislation.

The authors aim to put into context the recently passed piece of Italian legislation known as "Gelli-Bianco", in an effort to highlight the root causes and the underlying motives that led to its enactment. The new law's innovative aspects are elaborated on, in terms of treatment safety and civil liability of health care professional and providers. The report's main purpose is to shed light on the alleged benefits, against the backdrop of the worrisome data from recent years, gathered from case-based analysis of adverse events and related costs, without overlooking the likely challenges associated with innovations that are meant to affect complex systems with conflicting interests at play.