Hospitals might be frequently misdiagnosing pneumonia A third of patients with pneumonia weren’t diagnosed with the condition upon hospital admission And nearly 40% of patients initially diagnosed with pneumonia actually were sick with something else TUESDAY, Aug. 6, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Hospitals could be frequently misdiagnosing , causing patients to receive the wrong treatments and potentially become deathly ill, a new study finds. More than half the time, a pneumonia diagnosis will change following a patient’s admission to the hospital, researchers report.
Either someone initially diagnosed with pneumonia will end up actually sick from something else, or the diagnosis of pneumonia was missed when a patient entered the hospital, results show. “Pneumonia can seem like a clear-cut diagnosis, but there is actually quite a bit of overlap with other diagnoses that can mimic pneumonia,” said lead researcher , a pulmonary and critical care physician at University of Utah Health. For the study, published Aug.
5 in the researchers analyzed medical records from more than 100 VA medical centers across the country. More than 10% of hospitalizations involved a pneumonia diagnosis. Pneumonia is an infection in one or both lungs that causes the air sacs to fill with fluid or pus, the National Institute on Health says.
It can be caused by bacterial, viral or fungal infections. Researchers found that a third of patients who were ultimately diagnosed with pneumonia were not diag.