Misdiagnosis In Health Care

Many current issues and health policies in the health system in America today are impacted by a multitude of healthcare providers. One current issue that has yet to be highly publicized yet impacts all aspects of quality for clinicians is errors in diagnosis. This issue results in various client impacts from economical and additional strain on healthcare, to potential death of patients and social, ethical and potential aspects of neglect (Toker, 2013). Economically the provider’s misdiagnosis can cause the patient substantial cost through repeated tests, procedures or poor outcomes. Misdiagnosis can also cause multiple consults for subspecialties, additional medications, procedures and unanswered questions to diagnosis and results. Furthermore

Most common medical errors are errors in orders, however misdiagnosis is an error in oversight, misunderstanding or failure of clinician to notice clinical data and disease pattern. It is increasingly difficult to track these errors currently as most of these cases are only found through negligence and malpractice litigation as well as autopsy cases (Sternberg, 2015). It is imperative that clinicians research and study this to change outcomes that continue to adversely affect patients and providers.

Patient safety goals have focused every year on safety and adherence to best practices. The Joint Commission determines the highest priority patient safety issues and how best to address them (The Joint Commission, 2016). Treatment issues and errors have been a focus of the Joint Commission however the errors in diagnosis leading to inaccurate treatments have not been of serious concern to be placed on the dockets (Berenson et al., 2014).

The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine and the Institute of Medicine are examining this problem. It is currently made up of mostly physicians and other healthcare professionals. As the current trend continues with Nurse Practitioners practicing at the primary and acute care levels, it is imperative that nurse practitioners should definitely be a large part of the committee by the IOM through their Health Care Quality Initiative (Berenson et al.,

Defining the problems, exploring the causes and employing various research organizations to compile and address the potential causes (Berenson et al., 2014). The Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) such as Clinical Nurse Leaders (CNLs) are educated in clinical research and incorporation of evidence based practices. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) partnership with Patient Safety Organizations (PSOS). These organizations were to promote non-punitive reporting of safety related errors in healthcare. To date only 30 states are using these and little documentation and data gathering has explained their effectiveness on patient safety outcomes (Berenson et al.,