Hospitalized patients who died or were transferred to the ICU during their stay experienced a diagnostic error nearly a quarter of the time — and in most cases the error caused harm, according to a new study that’s prompting calls to rethink how health systems keep patients safe.

“Delayed diagnoses and misdiagnoses are more common than we would like to think, which is incredibly humbling,” said Andrew Auerbach, lead author of the JAMA Internal Medicine study and professor at the UCSF School of Medicine.

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Details: Researchers examined a random sample of nearly 2,500 patient records from 29 academic medical centers for adults hospitalized with general medical conditions and who were transferred to an ICU or died.

• 550 of those patients, or approximately 23%, experienced a diagnostic error.
• 18%, or 436 patients, experienced temporary or permanent harm as a result.
• Of the 1,863 patients who died, a diagnostic error was deemed a contributing factor about 7% of the time.