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Diagnosing And Treating Patients Defines The Overall Goal Of Any Hospital Essay

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Diagnosing and treating patients defines the overall goal of any hospital. In providing healthcare to a patient, the first step in handling a concern is a diagnosis. Delivering the correct diagnosis determines the resulting healthcare needed to treat a patient. If an error in diagnosis were to occur, improper treatment may be given to the patient or the correct treatment may be postponed or even withheld.6 Diagnostic errors occur frequently, can be caused from a variety of reasons, and have adverse effects on patients, their families, and even the hospitals that they occur at.
What exactly are diagnostic errors? Diagnostic errors are errors that arise from a delayed, missed, or incorrect diagnosis.4 Diagnostic errors are relevant in all forms of medicine and are a sign of a lack of patient care. They can occur in any step of the diagnostic process: evaluation, patient history, physical exams, testing, referral, and follow-up.8 Errors can happen from a multitude of reasons such as misjudgments, deficiency of knowledge, or lack of technique.3 As well, it is proven that malpractice claims that relate to diagnostic errors outweigh all alternative forms of medical mistakes.5 They are the most frequent, the most expensive, and the most hazardous form of error in reference to patient health. These types of errors are more liable to cause a patient death than other types of malpractice including surgical errors or drug overdoses.7 Considering how life threatening a misdiagnosis

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