The Institute of Medicine — now called the National Academy of Medicine — last year put out a report saying that most Americans will fall victim to at least one “meaningful” diagnostic error in their lifetimes.
Clinical decision support technology vendor VisualDx also said that healthcare providers in the U.S. make 18 million diagnostic errors annually. These errors account for 74,000 deaths per year, according to the Rochester, New York-based company.
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The problem of misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis is so prevalent that VisualDx called surgical and medication errors just the tip of the iceberg in patient safety, as the infographic above illustrates. The numbers are rather staggering.
VisualDx also announced on Tuesday that it has updated its iOS and Android mobile apps. The latest version adds the ability to see variations in about 2,700 diseases with the help of a database of more than 34,000 images, the company said.
Image: VisualDx