Estimates indicate most people in the United States might experience a meaningful diagnostic error at some point in their lives, sometimes with devastating consequences, according to a key 2015 report on this topic from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. These kinds of errors can prevent or delay appropriate medical treatment and also trigger unnecessary or harmful procedures and tests.
Clinicians make the wrong calls about patients’ health for a variety of reasons, including the biases they bring to their work and misunderstandings during discussions.
The accuracy and the timeliness of diagnoses also depend greatly on the conditions in which doctors, nurses and other medical professionals practice medicine, noted the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in a 2022 brief. Variables that can make diagnostic errors more likely include chaotic workplaces and rushed visits and flawed electronic health records (EHRs). Steps that may help reduce diagnostic errors include engaging patients more in discussions about their medical care through steps such as sharing visit notes, AHRQ said. The federal agency also recommended increased cooperation and teamwork, such as clinicians engaging directly with laboratory professionals and radiologists for guidance and assistance on selecting tests, interpreting results.
The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine and the Leapfrog Group are among the organizations looking to reduce cases of inaccurate and delayed identification of serious health conditions. In a 2022 report, the Leapfrog Group, a patient-safety organization founded by large employers and other major purchasers of health care, highlighted examples of medical centers that had taken significant steps to reduce diagnostic errors. At University of California San Diego, for example, the Post-Handoff Reports of Outcomes project uses the EHR to create summaries for clinicians that lists patients recently under their care and highlights outcomes after the patient was handed off to another clinician.
Another concern is underdiagnosis, which involves delayed or missed diagnosis of a medical condition. This can lead to There may be missed diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction in women or missed diagnosis of depression in Black patients.