Diagnostic error in hospitals: finding forests not just the big trees (4 August 2020)

Summary

Authors of this editorial, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, discuss the significance of the results of two new studies on hospital medicine and implications for emerging research and practice improvement efforts.

The first study was a systematic review to determine the prevalence of harmful diagnostic errors in hospitalised patients. The second studied readmitted patients using established methods for diagnostic error detection and analysis to gain insights into contributing factors. Both studies advance the science of measurement and understanding of how to reduce diagnostic error in hospitals.