News: Misdiagnosis linked with serious harm of almost 800k Americans annually, research finds

About 795,000 Americans suffer death or permanent disability after receiving a false negative diagnosis for a serious illness, with 371,000 deaths and 424,000 permanent disabilities, according to new research published by BMJ Quality & Safety. The study looked at ambulatory clinics, emergency departments, and the inpatient setting, and focused on 15 serious diseases from “The Big Three” disease categories for misdiagnosis with serious harm, namely vascular events, infections, and cancers, HealthLeaders reported.

Researchers of the study used data from 21.5 million sampled United States hospital discharges and registries from 2012 to 2014 and found even with the most conservative assumptions of disease incidence or disease-specific harms an estimate of 500,000 patients are affected by this public health concern. Other key findings from the study include:

• The 15 serious diseases that were the focal point of the study account for 50.7% of deaths and permanent disabilities linked to false negative diagnoses
• Five of the 15 diseases that were the focal point of the study account for 38.7% of deaths and permanent disabilities linked to false negative diagnoses: stroke, sepsis, pneumonia, venous thromboembolism, and lung cancer
• The overall average diagnosis error rate was estimated at 11.1%
• The disease with the highest rate of death and permanent disability linked to false negative diagnosis was stroke, which was missed in 17.5% of cases

“The methods used in our study are notable because they leverage disease-specific error and harm rates to estimate an overall total,” said David Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, lead investigator of the research and director of the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence, in a prepared statement. “A disease-focused approach to diagnostic error prevention and mitigation has the potential to significantly reduce these harms. Reducing diagnostic errors by 50% for stroke, sepsis, pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, and lung cancer could cut permanent disabilities and deaths by 150,000 per year.”

Newman-Toker stressed the importance of funding research to address this often-forgotten public health crisis. “If we are to achieve diagnostic excellence and the goal of zero preventable harm from diagnostic error, we must continue to invest in efforts to achieve success.”

Editor’s note: To read HealthLeaders’ coverage of this story, click here. To read the BMJ Quality & Safety study, click here.