While diagnostic performance is a crucial part of quality patient care, it remains understudied and should be prioritized as an area for innovation and improvement. Diagnostic errors have largely been ignored in patient safety efforts and health care quality initiatives for many years. This has contributed to potentially preventable patient harm, including disability and death. There is growing evidence that our diagnostic processes are highly variable, and harmful diagnostic errors are common; it is estimated that each of us will experience a preventable diagnostic error in our lifetime.
Aimed at spreading knowledge about diagnostic errors across the health care space, the series featured work from over 20 different health care leaders, and members of foundation’s Patient Care Program team – Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D., Daniel Yang, M.D., Karen Cosby, M.D., Susan Song, M.P.H., and Tommy Wang, Ph.D. – co-authored four articles in the series, writing about areas such as the use of artificial intelligence and measuring performance. Fineberg, Song and Wang co-authored the series’ final entry, moving beyond the focus on the present-day challenges and progress to examine the future of the diagnostic excellence field.
Looking ahead, improving diagnostic performance remains an ongoing and complex process, requiring continuous work from all parties in the healthcare space – researchers, policymakers, practitioners and others. With JAMA’s position as the most widely circulated medicine journal in the world, the articles in the Viewpoint series have been viewed thousands of times, reaching a wide healthcare audience and serving as a collection of knowledge that will help improve patient outcomes.
A full list of the Viewpoint series is below:
Daniel Yang, M.D., Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D., Karen Cosby, M.D.
Amrapali Maitra, M.D., Ph.D., Abraham Verghese, M.D.
Donald M. Berwick, M.D., M.P.P.
Julia Adler-Milstein, Ph.D., Jonathan H. Chen, M.D., Ph.D., Gurpreet Dhaliwal, M.D.
Derek C. Angus, M.D., M.P.H., Andrew B. Bindman, M.D.
Pat Croskerry, M.D. Ph.D.
David A. Simon, J.D., L.L.M., Ph.D., Carmel Shachar, J.D., M.P.H., I. Glenn Cohen, J.D.
Christine Cassel, M.D., Terry Fulmer, Ph.D., R.N.
Maria R. Dahm, M.A., Ph.D.; Carmel Crock, M.B.B.S., BLitt
Ashley Graham Kennedy, Ph.D.
Bob Kocher, M.D., Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D.
Leila Agha, Ph.D.; Jonathan Skinner, Ph.D.; David Chan, M.D., Ph.D.
Helen Burstin, M.D., M.P.H.; Karen Cosby, M.D.
Allan S. Detsky, M.D., Ph.D.
Kathryn M. McDonald, M.M., Ph.D.
Nirav R. Shah, M.D., MPH.; Tejal K. Gandhi, M.D., MPH; David W. Bates, M.D., M.S.
Matthew A. Reyna, Ph.D., M.S.; Elaine O. Nsoesie, Ph.D.; Gari D. Clifford, DPhil, M.A., MSc
Elizabeth A. Sarma, Ph.D., MPH; Fiona M. Walter, M.A., M.D.; Sarah C. Kobrin, Ph.D., MPH
Jonathan H. Chen, M.D., Ph.D.; Gurpreet Dhaliwal, M.D.; Daniel Yang, M.D.
Urmimala Sarkar M.D., MPH; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Ph.D., M.D., MAS
Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D.; Susan Song, MPH; Tommy Wang, Ph.D.
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