About 16 percent of preventable patient harm is caused by diagnostics errors, with almost all adults likely to experience it in their lifetime, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, speaking on World Patient Safety Day 2024 (marked annually on September 17), said diagnostics errors can include missed, incorrect, delayed, or miscommunicated diagnoses, leading to serious harm and even death.
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As a result, millions of people experience avoidable suffering every year, putting a huge burden on health systems and increasing healthcare costs.
“The right diagnosis at the right time is the basis of safe and effective care,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Reducing these risks takes collaboration between healthcare workers and managers, policymakers and regulators, civil society and the private sector, and importantly patients and their families. Together, let’s get it right and make it safe.”
World Patient Safety Day is observed yearly to raise public awareness and foster collaboration between patients, health workers, policymakers, and healthcare leaders to improve patient safety.
This year’s theme is “Improving diagnosis for patient safety”, with the slogan “Get it right, make it safe”. It highlights the critical importance of correct and timely diagnosis in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes.
According to the global health body, patient harm potentially reduces global economic growth by 0.7 percent yearly and indirectly costs trillions of US dollars on a global scale.
A diagnosis identifies a patient’s health problem and is a key to accessing the care and treatment they need, WHO stated.
It explains a diagnostic error as the failure to establish a correct and timely explanation of a patient’s health problem, which can include delayed, incorrect, or missed diagnoses, or a failure to communicate that explanation to the patient.
It notes that diagnostic safety can be significantly improved by addressing the systems-based issues and cognitive factors that can lead to diagnostic errors.
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Systemic factors are organisational vulnerabilities that predispose to diagnostic errors, including communication failures between health workers or health workers and patients, heavy workloads, and ineffective teamwork, the body said.
On how to address the challenge, WHO urged policymakers to ensure appropriate national guidelines, protocols, and regulations exist and are implemented, and that necessary budget and resources are allocated.
Health facility and programme managers should create safe and conducive working environments, promote continuous improvement, and ensure adequate systems, standards, and processes are in place. Health facility and programme managers should also ensure that diagnostic tools and technologies are well-maintained, sharing user feedback with the manufacturer quickly to improve systems.
At the individual level, patients and their families should proactively participate in the diagnostic process by sharing their symptoms and full medical history, asking questions, raising concerns, and following up on test results.
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