Approximately 1 in 14 general medicine patients, or 7%, suffer harm from diagnostic errors, according to a new study led by Anuj Dalal, MD, from the division of general internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Here are seven things to know about the study, according to an Oct. 22 Medscape report:
1. Up to 85% of diagnostic error cases could be prevented.
2. According to the study, adverse-event surveillance in hospitals underestimated the prevalence of harmful diagnostic errors.
3. Typically, around 50% of diagnostic errors are preventable, but this study says otherwise.
4. Researchers selected a random sample of 675 hospital patients from a total of 9,147 eligible cases who received general medical care between July 2019 and September 2021, excluding the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
5. Cases sampled featured patients transferred to intensive care more than 24 hours after admission (100% of 130 cases), death within 90 days of hospital admission or after discharge (38.5% of 141 cases), complex clinical problems without transfer to intensive care or death within 90 days of admission (7% of 298 cases), and 2.4% of 106 cases without high-risk criteria.
6. Among all the cases examined, diagnostic errors were identified in 160 instances in 154 patients.
7. The most common diagnoses associated with diagnostic errors in the study included heart failure, acute kidney injury, sepsis, pneumonia, respiratory failure, altered mental state, abdominal pain and hypoxemia.