According to an Institute of Medicine Report, “Improving Diagnosis in Health Care,” released on September 15, 2015, best estimates are that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime. The 369-page report is a follow up to the 1999 report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.” The report notes that diagnostic errors receive little attention because little data exists and often clinicians don’t know a mistake occurred or find about it in retrospect.

“This latest report improving diagnosis and healthcare is a serious second wake-up call in my mind that we still have a long way to go,” said Victor J. Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine, during a press conference announcing the findings. “Diagnostic errors are a significant contributor to patient harm and have received too little attention until now… Errors in diagnosis … can persist throughout all segments of care and continue to harm, in my mind, an unacceptable number of patients.”

While the report recognized that there are no reliable numbers on how many diagnostic errors actually occur, recent research concludes that doctors make 12 million outpatient diagnostic errors each year. In other words, there is approximately one diagnostic error for every twenty diagnosis.

According to the report, research spanning decades postmortem reports found that diagnostic errors contribute to approximately ten percent of patient deaths, and medical record reviews suggest that they account for six to seventeen percent of adverse events in hospitals. In addition, diagnostic errors are the leading type of paid medical malpractice claims and are nearly twice as likely to result in the patient’s death compared to other claims.

The report calls for greater measurement of these errors by all healthcare organizations. The full report can be found here:

[Improving Diagnosis in Health Care](http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2015/Improving-Diagnosis-in-Healthcare.aspx)