News: Physicians make daily diagnostic errors, poll finds

One in six physicians estimated that they make daily diagnostic errors, according to a recent Medscape poll. According to the poll results, pediatricians were less likely than the average to say they made diagnostic errors daily (11%) and emergency physicians were more likely (26%). Family medicine (18%), general practice (22%), and internal medicine physicians (15%) fell in the middle.

Nurses, advanced practice registered nurses, and physician assistants (PAs) answered similarly, according to Medscape Medical News: in all three profession types, 17% said they estimated they make daily diagnostic errors.

Medscape opened the poll on the heels of a survey report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine that suggested that physicians tend to underestimate how often they make diagnostic errors.

The survey found that most respondents believed diagnostic errors to be uncommon (once a month or less), despite half of them reporting that they felt diagnostic uncertainty every day. Previously published figures from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, estimate that diagnostic errors occur in 10-15% of all patient encounters, according to Medscape.

According to the Medscape poll, physicians NPs/PAs agreed on the top three reasons diagnostic errors occur. One was “lack of feedback on diagnostic accuracy” (38% of physicians and 44% of NPs/PAs listed it as the top factor). Another was time constraints, listed by 37% of physicians and 47% of NPs/PAs. The final reason in the top three was a “culture that discourages disclosure or errors” (27% physicians, 33% NPs/PAs). 

Emergency physicians were more likely than physicians in general (76% versus 52%) and NPs/PAs (64%) to say they experienced diagnostic uncertainty daily, according to Medscape.

Asked at what point they experienced diagnostic uncertainty, the greatest percentages of providers (70% physicians, 76% NPs/PAs) answered that it was when making the actual diagnosis. The second most frequent time for uncertainty was when deciding what tests to order (34% physicians, 50% NPs/PAs).

Editor’s note: To read Medscape’s coverage of this story, click here. To read the survey report from the Journal of General Internal Medicine, click here. To read the estimated diagnostic errors report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, click here.