The Shocking Toll of Diagnostic Errors
A new study shows reveals the alarming impact of diagnostic errors in the US healthcare system.
Every year, an estimated 371,000 people die and 424,000 suffer permanent disabilities – including brain damage, blindness, and loss of limbs or organs – as a result of misdiagnosis.
This means that diagnostic errors contribute to nearly 800,000 adverse outcomes annually.
The “Big Three” and Common Misdiagnoses:
A significant portion of these severe outcomes (40%) are linked to misdiagnosis of five conditions:
- Stroke: Often missed due to subtle symptoms like dizziness or headache, which can mimic less serious conditions.
- Sepsis: The body’s overwhelming response to infection, challenging to diagnose due to the varied location and presentation of infections.
- Pneumonia: Can be difficult to distinguish from other respiratory illnesses, especially in patients with underlying health conditions.
- Venous Thromboembolism (VTE): Blood clots, often in the legs, that can travel to the lungs, causing life-threatening pulmonary embolism.
- Lung Cancer: Early symptoms can be vague and easily attributed to other causes, leading to delayed diagnosis and treatment.
These conditions fall under the “Big Three” categories of frequently misdiagnosed illnesses: vascular events, infections, and cancers.
These numbers represent only a fraction of the roughly 12 million Americans who are misdiagnosed every year.
While the chances of dying or sustaining severe physical harm due to diagnostic error are remote, misdiagnosis is a real issue, and in many cases, preventable.
Why Do Diagnostic Errors Happen?
Several factors contribute to diagnostic errors:
- Atypical Symptoms: Many serious conditions can present with mild or nonspecific symptoms, making them easy to overlook or misinterpret.
- Complex Patient Presentations: Patients with multiple health conditions (comorbidities) can have atypical symptom patterns, making diagnosis more challenging.
- Incomplete Medical Histories: Lack of access to complete and organized patient records can hinder accurate diagnosis.
- Communication Barriers: Miscommunication or lack of clear communication between patients and healthcare providers can lead to misunderstandings and missed information.
- Implicit Bias: Unconscious biases can influence healthcare providers’ perceptions and decision-making, leading to disparities in diagnosis and treatment.
The Impact of Implicit Bias:
Implicit bias in healthcare can have serious consequences, particularly for patients of color. Studies show that:
- Black patients are less likely to receive pain medication: This is partly due to harmful stereotypes about drug-seeking behavior and pain tolerance.
- Women’s pain may be dismissed or minimized: This can lead to misdiagnosis of serious conditions.
Empowering Patients in the Diagnostic Process:
Patients play a crucial role in their own diagnostic journey. Here’s how you can advocate for yourself:
- Maintain a thorough medical history: Keep detailed records of your health conditions, medications, and treatments.
- Stay informed: Research your condition and ask questions about tests and treatment options.
- Communicate openly with your healthcare providers: Share all relevant information and don’t hesitate to express your concerns.
- Seek a second opinion when needed: Don’t be afraid to seek another healthcare provider’s perspective if you have doubts about your diagnosis.
Similarly, a patient may lose trust in a healthcare provider and withhold information if the quality of the provider’s care is clouded by implicit bias. Implicit biases are unconscious stereotypes an individual associates with a group of people, which can subconsciously affect how the individual treats that group.
For example, a healthcare provider may be biased to think that women exaggerate their pain, which may lead to misdiagnosing a female patient.
For people of color, implicit bias from practitioners is even more prevalent. Black people are less likely to receive pain medication from paramedics, due in part to racial stereotypes about drug-seeking behavior and high pain tolerance.
Reducing Diagnostic Errors: A Shared Responsibility:
While implicit bias in medicine will always exist on some level, becoming aware of unconscious biases is the first step healthcare providers can take in learning to look beyond them.
Errors will still happen, but by truly listening to patients and validating their experiences, effective and life-saving treatment can be rendered sooner.
By working together, patients and healthcare providers can reduce the devastating impact of diagnostic errors and ensure timely and accurate diagnoses for all.
Addressing diagnostic errors requires a multi-pronged approach:
- Raising awareness: Educating both patients and healthcare providers about the prevalence and consequences of diagnostic errors.
- Improving communication and information sharing: Promoting clear communication, standardized protocols, and better access to patient records.
- Addressing implicit bias: Implementing training programs to help healthcare providers recognize and mitigate their unconscious biases.
- Investing in diagnostic tools and technologies: Utilizing advanced diagnostic technologies and decision support systems to improve accuracy.
Joseph L. Ciaccio is the Managing Partner in charge of the firm’s Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury Litigation Departments. He has successfully litigated a wide variety of birth-related injuries including fetal distress, hypoxia, and Erb’s palsy injuries as well as a range of medical malpractice actions, including failures to diagnose cancer, infections, orthopedic negligence, and more.
If you would like to schedule a free consultation Joe Ciaccio or a Napoli Shkolnik team member, please contact us today.