May 2009

Medical diagnostic errors kill 40-80,000 each year

According to a study published in the Mar. 11, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, misdiagnosis accounts for an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 hospital deaths per year and that tort claims for diagnostic errors -- defined as diagnoses that are missed, wrong or delayed -- are nearly twice as common as claims for medication errors.

In the study, David Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, and Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, attempted to throw the blame for most of these errors on "system failures" rather than on individual medical doctors who lack the training or skill to make correct diagnoses.

"Moving away from a model that chastises individual physicians to one that focuses on improving the medical system as a whole could offer big payoffs for improving diagnostic accuracy as well as the cost effectiveness of care," said Newman-Toker, assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Because diagnostic errors can be tricky to track to their roots, Pronovost, an expert on breaking down complex medical problems, says more research is needed to understand and find patterns in the origins of such errors.

In the meantime, however, the death toll from diagnostic errors will be added to the already staggering number of injuries and deaths caused by medication errors, estimated at 1.5 million.

SOURCE: "Diagnostic Errors -- The Next Frontier for Patient Safety," by David E. Newman-Toker; Peter J. Pronovost. JAMA March 11, 2009; 2009;301(10):1060-1062.