Diagnostic error occurs in 5-20 percent of physician-patient encounters, with a comparable prevalence among ICU admissions and patients who die in the intensive care unit (ICU). Further, diagnostic errors comprise 9-12 percent of adverse safety events leading to ICU admission, and the majority of these errors are deemed preventable, says a review paper to appear in Annals of the American Thoracic Society. Broadly, diagnostic errors are due to cognitive failures (e.g., misinterpreting a laboratory value), systems-based failures (e.g., poor coordination of care across health systems), or both, according to the paper.

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