Patient Safety Awareness Week Shines Light on Diagnostic Errors

BOSTON — The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) kicked off the annual Patient Safety Awareness Week Sunday with the theme of reducing diagnostic errors.

Navigate Your Health Safely, the theme of this year’s Patient Safety Awareness Week, aims to engage patients with the health care process and decrease the number of inaccurate diagnoses.

“All of us will be patients at some point in life, and we should approach that experience the way we would approach any important journey — with careful planning and communication,” said Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, NPSF president, in a statement. “Navigate Your Health Safely reminds us that providing safe patient care can best be achieved when patients are key members of the team and are encouraged to take an active role in their care.”

One in every 10 diagnoses are wrong, delayed or missed completely, according to NPSF. These diagnostic errors may account for 40,000 to 80,000 deaths each year. To help combat these numbers, the NPSF teamed with the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) to develop educational materials and help health care providers and patients better understand how they can prevent diagnostic errors.

“We will never achieve the quality of health care we want or deserve until the problem of diagnostic error is addressed,” said Mark L. Graber, MD, founder and president of SIDM, in a statement. “Physicians have options they can use to improve the diagnostic process, but this is not just the physician’s problem to solve. Patients, other health care providers and health care organizations can also help prevent diagnostic errors. Patient Safety Awareness Week will have achieved its goal if it increases awareness of the problem and the many opportunities available to prevent diagnostic errors and harm.”

A series of webcasts, which will feature several experts on diagnostic safety, will be offered free of charge on the NPSF website throughout the month of March.