Diagnostic errors are to blame for most successful malpractice claims

April 25, 2013 (Press-News.org) According to a recent study, the primary cause of successful medical malpractice claims is not surgical errors or birth injuries, but rather diagnostic errors. The study, published in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety, examined records from 25 years of medical malpractice claims as reported in the federal National Practitioner Data Bank.

According to the authors of the study, approximately 29 percent of all successful medical malpractice claims related to diagnoses that were incorrect, delayed or simply missed. These errors accounted for approximately 39 percent of malpractice related deaths and 35 percent of all money paid to victims and their families.

Overall, the study examined nearly 350,000 allegations of medical malpractice that occurred between 1986 and 2010 for which payment was made. Of those cases attributed to diagnostic error, approximately 41 percent of patients died and the average payment for a successful claim was about $389,000. By comparison, researchers discovered that medication errors and treatment errors had death rates of 39 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Only obstetric errors had a higher average payout amount than diagnostic errors.

Incorrect diagnoses are a serious problem

According to some estimates, between 40,000 and 80,000 people in the U.S. die each year due to missed or incorrect medical diagnoses. Studies of autopsy data indicate that between 10 and 20 percent of deaths in the U.S. are caused by conditions that went undiagnosed while patients were alive. Sadly, an estimated 50 percent of these conditions could have been treated successfully if caught in time.

Unfortunately, incorrect or missed diagnoses are often more difficult errors for doctors to discover than, for example, surgical errors or other kinds of mistakes. This is because, in most cases, time must pass before physicians are able to see evidence that a diagnostic error has been made.

Developing procedures to improve diagnostic efforts has proven to be particularly difficult. The process of diagnosing a patient is complex and, in many cases, doctors must make a decision under significant time pressure. There is also very little information available about the causes of diagnostic errors, which further exacerbates efforts to address the issue.

Although some have suggested an increased reliance on test results as the answer, it does not appear that simply ordering more tests is a viable solution. The cost of performing unnecessary or duplicative tests on patients runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars each year, according to some estimates.

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