Studies show that some twelve million Americans annually experience a diagnostic error, sometimes with devasting consequences and these errors contribute $100 billion in waste to the system.
The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) https://www.improvediagnosis.org applauds the increased funding for research and quality improvement to reduce the tremendous human and financial toll of missed, wrong, or a delayed diagnosis as proposed in the President’s budget.
The President’s Budget proposal would provide $10 million to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) https://www.ahrq.gov to establish Diagnostic Safety Centers of Excellence. This is a continuation and commitment to an increase of $10 million in annual funding for these activities that became law on March 15, 2022, via the FY 2022 omnibus spending measure.
According to Jennie Dr. Ward-Robinson, PhD, CEO of SIDM, “Research suggests that this previously under recognized patient safety issue has a public health impact greater than all other healthcare associated harms combined.”
The AHRQ funding will be used to develop, implement, test, and refine practical solutions for reducing diagnostic errors using human factors, system engineering, and digital health applications. The increase in funding will also support the evaluation, refinement, and dissemination of evidence-based tools and resources to clinicians, patients, healthcare organizations, and system designers.
Diagnosis is often a complex, unfolding process, and accuracy is influenced by many factors such as the availability of clinical expertise, the correct ordering and interpretation of tests, the usability of EMRs, the level of patient engagement, and increasingly, newer technology-based decision supports such as AI/machine learning, plus other factors.
Accurate and timely diagnosis is crucial to a high value healthcare system. If the diagnosis is wrong, all else that follows is either harmful, wasted, or both. How to best support clinicians and patients to get to a timely, accurate diagnosis should be a primary “use case” across federal health agency policy and program development activities. SIDM applauds AHRQ for moving diagnosis to the front and center of patient safety.