Burden of serious harms from diagnostic error in the US (19 January 2024)

Summary

Diagnostic errors cause substantial preventable harms worldwide, but rigorous estimates for total burden are lacking. Newman-Toker and colleague previously estimated diagnostic error and serious harm rates for key dangerous diseases in major disease categories and validated plausible ranges using clinical experts.

In this study they estimated the annual US burden of serious misdiagnosis-related harms (permanent morbidity, mortality) by combining prior results with rigorous estimates of disease incidence. They found that  an estimated 795 000 Americans become permanently disabled or die annually across care settings because dangerous diseases are misdiagnosed. Just 15 diseases account for about half of all serious harms, so the problem may be more tractable than previously imagined.

This year’s World Patient Safety Day on 17 September 2024 (WPSD 2024) is focused on the theme “Improving diagnosis for patient safety”. Find out more.