How safe is the diagnostic process in healthcare?

The seminal report To Err is Human focused on a wide range of serious patient safety concerns; diagnostic error was mentioned only in passing.1 Very little data were available on the magnitude of harm related to diagnostic errors at that time, except for a back-of-the-napkin estimate that diagnostic error could be responsible for 40 000–80 000 in-hospital deaths annually.2 The problem finally received its due 15 years later, when the National Academy of Medicine asserted that "... most of us will experience at least one diagnostic error in our lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences".3 In this context, the paper by Newman-Toker et al in this issue of BMJ Quality & Safety is a welcome contribution, presenting an extensively researched set of estimates that proposes that harm may be an order-of-magnitude larger.4 The paper is the third part of a larger study,...
Source: Quality and Safety in Health Care - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research