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Missed and delayed diagnoses, a major patient safety concern
Missed and delayed diagnoses are common medical errors that can lead to serious injury and death. This morning the Daily Mail wrote about an 11 year old boy who died from severe bowel obstruction after a doctor misdiagnosed him with constipation and sent him back home. The doctor neglected to send him for an X-ray despite symptoms consistent with bowel obstruction.
Failure to diagnose or delay to diagnose a medical condition occur so often that the ECRI institute ranked this type of medical malpractice its number one concern out of its Top 10 Patients Safety Concern in 2020.