Researchers call diagnostic errors leading to death or becoming disabled "public health emergency"
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Diagnostic errors kill or disable almost 800,000 Americans every year, according to new research from Johns Hopkins. Researchers are calling this a public health emergency.
When doctors don't accurately diagnose things like a stroke or lung cancer, patients are permanently injured and even killed.
We depend on the medical community to keep us healthy and save lives but there are failures, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Center for Diagnostic Excellence.
It found diagnostic mistakes account for 371,000 deaths a year and 424,000 permanent disabilities.
"That makes this a critically important public health emergency," Dr. David Newman-Toker said.
Dr. Newman-Toker lead the research team that analyzed studies covering about 22 million medical records. Misdiagnosed strokes ranked high because symptoms can be subtle and confusing.
"They present with dizziness, that's the biggest risk factor for being missed when you have a stroke," Newman-Toker said. "Because it looks a lot like inner ear diseases that are much more common."
In addition to strokes, most errors are linked to just a few conditions including sepsis, pneumonia, blood clots and lung cancer.
Dr. Newman-Toker says the mistakes are mostly related to human error.
"There are predominately decision-making errors at the bedside," Newman-Toker said.
He says in addition to better oversight and regulations, patients and families can help prevent errors by providing the medical team with a concise summary of the issue and being vigilant if people don't get better. Also, ask questions.
"The most crucial question for patients to ask is: 'What's the worst thing this could be?' and 'Why isn't it that?'" Newman-Toker said.
Even with all the errors, there's less than .1% chance of serious harm related to a misdiagnosis.
"Patients should not be afraid of the health care system," he said.
We have information for you about the patient's toolkit for diagnosis with this important new research and more specifics on how you can protect yourself and your family.
