Diagnostic errors are the leading type of medical error reported by patients¹ and a leading cause for malpractice claims.²^-4 A study of malpractice claims in primary care in Massachusetts found that more than 70% of primary care claims reside in the diagnostic safety realm, and patients rank diagnostic errors as the leading type of medical error that they have experienced.⁵ In 2015, the National Academy of Medicine issued a report, Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, highlighting the importance and causes of diagnostic errors and making recommendations for preventing and mitigating such errors.⁶ However, despite increasing appreciation of diagnostic errors as a patient safety issue, progress in understanding and preventing diagnostic errors has been modest.⁷ Unlike medication errors, which have been more successfully reduced with system-level and information technology–based interventions, there are no comparable single technical or educational fixes for diagnostic errors.⁸^,9

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