Complexity of Preventing Diagnostic Error
Listed on ECRI’s Top 10 list of patient safety concerns in 2024, complexity of preventing diagnostic error leads to a significant percentage of malpractice claims.
In a recent article, Forbes Advisor reviewed medical malpractice statistics of 2024, revealing that misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis accounts for nearly one-third (32%) of medical malpractice claims in the United States. According to ECRI, ”About half of serious harm caused by diagnostic error is related to 15 diseases. Improving diagnosis of the top five (stroke, sepsis, pneumonia, venous thromboembolism, and lung cancer) represents an opportunity to significantly reduce harm.”
In their “Top 10” report, ECRI further states, “Since approximately 40% of patient encounters in primary care offices involve some kind of medical test, effective test result management offers a significant opportunity to reduce error and patient harm.”
Tracking and managing referrals and diagnostic test results is a critical component of reducing diagnostic errors. MMIC has a practice tip to help you manage this effectively: Results Management - Tracking Diagnostic Tests and Referrals
This article falls under CLINICAL/PATIENT SAFETY in the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) risk domains.
Risks associated with the delivery of care to patients, residents, and other health care customers. Clinical risks include failure to follow evidence-based practice, medication errors, hospital acquired conditions (HAC), serious safety events (SSE), health care equity, opportunities to improve safety within the care environments, and others.