This is a companion article to this month’s Inside Track, “IOM Tackles Diagnostic Errors.”

According to the Institute of Medicine, urgent change is warranted to address the challenge of diagnostic errors in healthcare. “Improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among healthcare professionals, healthcare organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policymakers,” says the institute.

Recommendations from the IOM report, Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare, “contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of healthcare quality and safety.” Listed below in short format are the key recommendations of the report.1 For further detail, visit the report homepage at http://iom.nationalacademies.org/reports/2015/improving-diagnosis-in-healthcare.

  1. Facilitate more effective teamwork in the diagnostic process among healthcare professionals, patients, and their families.
  1. Enhance healthcare professional education and training in the diagnostic process.
  1. Ensure that health information technologies support patients and healthcare professionals in the diagnostic process.
  1. Develop and deploy approaches to identify, learn from, and reduce diagnostic errors and near misses in clinical practice.
  1. Establish a work system and culture that supports the diagnostic process and improvements in diagnostic performance.
  1. Develop a reporting environment and medical liability system that facilitates improved diagnosis through learning from diagnostic errors and near misses.
  1. Design a payment and care delivery environment that supports the diagnostic process.
  1. Provide dedicated funding for research on the diagnostic process and diagnostic errors.

REFERENCE

  1. Improving diagnosis in healthcare: recommendations [online]. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine, 2015. Available at: http://iom.nationalacademies.org/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2015/Improving-Diagnosis/Diagnosis_Recommendations.pdf. Accessed September 28, 2015.