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Study Finds Diagnostic Errors by Doctors Common
Medical errors, including misdiagnosis and adverse drug reactions, cause serious injuries each year. Although action is being taken to reduce errors, much work remains to protect patients.
January 08, 2010 /Cancer PR News/ -- Study Finds Diagnostic Errors by Doctors Common
Article provided by Corsiglia McMahon & Allard, LLP
Visit us at www.california-kaiser-lawyer.com
To Err is Human, a medical study published a decade ago, is credited with highlighting the prevalence of human error in medicine and launching reform efforts. Yet in November, 10 years after that report was issued, a new report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine titled "Diagnostic Error in Medicine: An Analysis of 583 Physician Reported Errors" suggests that doctors continue to commonly misdiagnose internal ailments to the detriment of patients.
According to Medpage today, pulmonary embolism and drug reactions/overdoses topped the list of missed diagnoses, with lung cancer, colorectal cancer, acute coronary syndrome, breast cancer and stroke also prone to misdiagnosis. The doctors self-reported the missed diagnoses and their significance, with 28 percent of the missed diagnoses classified as major, 41 percent as moderate and 31 percent as minor or insignificant.
Despite the seriousness of the report's findings, an individual patient's chances of facing diagnostic error remain low, with the top conditions prone to misdiagnosis in the study correctly diagnosed in the vast majority of cases. Nevertheless, autopsy data consistently shows 10 percent to 15 percent diagnostic error during the past few decades.
Pulmonary embolism strikes 650,000 Americans each year, killing 200,000, Family Practice Notebook says. Eleven percent of those deaths occur in the first hour, making prompt diagnosis essential. Of those who survive the first episode, one-third will die of a subsequent episode, according to WrongDiagnosis.com, with prompt diagnosis and therapy as the best antidote. The elderly are particularly vulnerable to missed or delayed pulmonary embolism diagnoses.
Misdiagnosis of drug reactions and overdoses, the misdiagnosis tied for the top spot in the doctor survey, has been the subject of multiple medical investigations in recent years and is part of the focus of a new United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) effort to reduce drug error. That effort responds to a 2006 National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM) study revealing 1.7 million preventable drug errors per year. Failing to detect or monitor for allergies and overdosing are two of the many common drug errors the FDA has asked the health care industry to try to eliminate by sharing experiences and strategies.
While numerous strategies aimed at reducing medical error have been put into action since To Err Is Human shocked the nation with news that medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 Americans each year, the current report on medical diagnostic error shows that much work remains to be done to protect patients from preventable medical error.
Article provided by Corsiglia McMahon & Allard, LLP
Visit us at www.california-kaiser-lawyer.com
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