Malpractice News: Medical Errors and Malpractice

Malpractice News: According to a study published in October 2006 by the Annals of Internal Medicine, medical mistakes and preventable errors such as failure to order diagnostic tests played a role in nearly 60 percent of cases in which patients were allegedly hurt by missed or delayed diagnoses.

The study involved a review of approximately 300 closed medical malpractice claims filed between 1984 and 2004 from four U.S. malpractice insurance carriers.

The researchers who analyzed the claim documents concluded that nearly two-thirds of the cases involved a diagnostic error which ultimately caused harm to a patent. Approximately 60 percent of the cases resulted in serious harm to the patient, and 30 percent of the cases resulted in a patient death.

Most of the cases involved missed or delayed diagnoses in patients treated in a physician’s office, with the majority of the patients being treated by their primary care physician. More than half of the errors involved missed or delayed diagnoses of cancer.

100 of the cases involved a failure to order or the timeliness of an order for diagnostic tests, 81 cases involved errors due to the physician’s failure to create a follow-up plan, and 67 cases resulted from a doctor’s incorrectly interpretation of test results.

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see also:

Malpractice News: Medical Errors and Malpractice Malpractice News: Annals of Internal Medine report on medical errors
Malpractice News: Report on medical errors and mistakes by physicians

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