Simple physician checklists, diagnostic decisionsupport systems, or second looks at medical imaging exams could help prevent some of the estimated 40,000 to 80,000 hospital deaths in the U.S. from diagnostic errors, according to Johns Hopkins University physicians.
Tort claims for diagnostic errors are almost twice as common as claims for treatment- related errors. Diagnostic errors, however, do not get the same level of attention as drug-prescribing errors, wrong-site surgeries, and hospital-acquired infections, said Drs. David Newman-Toker and Peter Pronovost, writing for the March 11 Journal of the American Medical Association. To bring the diagnostic error rate down, they support using checklists that highlight critical diagnoses, decision-support software that calculate a patient’s risk level, independent second looks at x-rays and CT scans, and rapid steering of patients with unusual symptoms to diagnostic experts.
