Report cites how digital technology can halt physician misdiagnosis resulting in up to 80,000 deaths annually
ROCHESTER, N.Y., [SEPTEMBER 23, 2015] — Art Papier, M.D., an expert in clinical informatics and global thought leader
in medical misdiagnosis, said today the Institute of Medicine’s newly-issued landmark report serves as a wakeup call for consumers and physicians about the issue of errors and delays in diagnosis – the leading cause of harm to patients and care-related costs in medicine. Papier added that the report highlights how technology that is already available today has the potential to transform the way medicine is practiced.
“For the past year, the Institute of Medicine analyzed how misdiagnosis is impacting health care in the United States,” said Dr. Papier, a practicing physician, medical school professor at the University of Rochester and chief executive officer of VisualDx. “Thankfully, this report is shedding light on a significant problem that’s responsible for 40,000 to 80,000 deaths annually as well as non-fatal incidents reaching into the millions.”
An infographic from VisualDx that reveals the daily challenges physicians face to accurately diagnose patients is available for download.
“To increase safety in U.S. healthcare delivery, the Institute suggests technology must play a more significant role in assuring an accurate diagnosis,” said Dr. Papier. “Though we live in a digital age with an impossible amount of medical knowledge to memorize, so many doctors never use technology to help them think through cases. I believe that the IOM report will usher in a new era of encouraging health care practitioners to rely on technology in an entirely different way.”
Dr. Papier, a practicing physician and medical informatics expert who has been featured by CNN International and Wired, professionally focuses on designing clinical decision support systems to effectively reduce diagnostic error at the point of care, whether in an emergency department, urgent care clinic or office exam room. This expertise helped Dr. Papier to co-found VisualDx, a web-based clinical decision technology currently used in more than 1,500 locations across the U.S., including major hospital systems, medical schools and community clinics.
“We like to think about physicians diagnosing patients similar to how pilots fly a plane,” said Dr. Papier. “Imagine being a passenger on a flight from JFK to Heathrow with the pilot using their memory instead of cockpit instruments. Would you want to stay on that plane? Probably not. Many doctors practice medicine this same way by memorizing the route instead of relying on technology tools as they work. The IOM report is a call to action for physicians to augment their thinking with reliable systems. This report will help us move from flying by memory to modern guided flight in medicine using the latest technology.”
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