A new study of 2,428 patient records from 29 medical centers found that hospitalized patients who died or were transferred to the ICU during their stay experienced a diagnostic error nearly 25% of the time. Furthermore, because of these errors, 18% of patients suffered temporary or permanent harm. And of the 1,863 patients who died, diagnostic error was determined to be a contributing factor in 7% of cases.

“Delayed diagnosis and misdiagnosis are more common than we would like to think,” said Dr. Andrew Auerbach, lead author of the JAMA Internal Medicine study. He told  Axios it may be that physicians with higher workloads or certain types of patients are more likely to make an error.

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JAMA editors called the study “striking” as they noted that the researchers examined the records and data of especially sick patients, some of whom “may have had poor outcomes regardless of errors.” But the editors also said that future research could compare hospitalized patients with similar diagnoses and severity of illness to understand the impact of diagnostic errors.

“As the complexity of medical practice grows, we have a responsibility to patients to examine our role in contributing to patient harm through diagnostic error and invest in research and quality improvement initiatives to strengthen the diagnostic process in medical education and clinical care,” wrote Grace Zhang, a JAMA editorial fellow and UCSF internal medical resident, and Dr. Cary Gross, a JAMA associate editor, and Yale University professor of medicine.

Experts ponder whether using new AI tools can help improve the accuracy of diagnosis. However, recent evidence found that ChatGPT incorrectly diagnosed over eight in 10 selected pediatric case studies, highlighting the limitations of the new technology.

Auerbach said that AI can certainly help at the point of care to assist with diagnosis. “But I don’t know if AI is going to solve the time-pressure issues…like how many patients you have on your service and how many handoffs you have going on,” he said.

In fact, it may be low-tech tools that can help reduce provider mistakes, says Axios. One of the solutions under study is the “diagnostic pause.” This is a “timeout” for a clinician to consult with colleagues and review a checklist to make sure they didn’t miss ordering any tests or overlook any clues from a patient’s medical history. “It involves giving yourself time to think,” Auerbach explained.