Study: Disease-focused approach needed to reduce diagnostic errors

Reducing diagnostic errors by 50% for stroke, sepsis, pneumonia, pulmonary embolism and lung cancer could reduce permanent disabilities and deaths by 150,000 per year, a study found. Published this week in BMJ Quality & Safety, the study ─ believed to be the first rigorous national estimate of permanent disability and death from diagnostic error ─ found an estimated 795,000 Americans die or are permanently disabled by diagnostic error each year. Vascular events, infections and cancer account for 75% of the serious harms. The authors suggest diseases accounting for the greatest number of serious misdiagnosis-related harms and with high diagnostic error rates should become top priority targets for developing, implementing and scaling systematic solutions. (Johns Hopkins Medicine news release, 7/17/23)