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Patient vs. clinician perspectives on barriers to accurate diagnosis

This week, we look at barriers to accurate diagnosis in two infographics shared by Nick West, chief medical officer in the Vascular Division at US-based multinational medical devices and health care group Abbott, at HBI 2022.

HBI members can click here to view Nick West’s full slide presentation.

West presented survey data from 2,500 patients, 800 physicians, and 200 healthcare leaders on perceived barriers to accurate diagnosis. Amongst patients, the three biggest perceived barriers to receiving an accurate diagnosis were found to be patients struggling to recognise their symptoms, not thinking their symptoms are important and not understanding what to do next in terms of where to go for help within the healthcare system (of the 14 countries in which data was collected, the UK had the highest number of patients saying they struggled with this).

On the clinician side, the largest three perceived barriers were limited face-to-face time with the patient, inefficient communication channels between primary care providers and specialists and a lack of staff resources.

This data came from a cross-national survey. Interestingly, the responses were fairly consistent across different parts of the world.

We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Martin De Benito Gellner or call 0207 183 3779.