Utah: Hospitals often misdiagnose pneumonia, a new study suggests.
According to media reports, experts found that often hospitals misdiagnose pneumonia, due to which the patient is treated incorrectly and possibly dies.
More than half of the time, the diagnosis of pneumonia changes after a patient is admitted to the hospital, the researchers report.
Research findings suggest that either the person initially diagnosed with pneumonia eventually becomes ill with something else or that pneumonia is not immediately diagnosed when the patient is admitted to the hospital.
“Pneumonia may seem like an obvious disease, but it’s actually so similar to other conditions that doctors make mistakes,” said Dr. Barbara Jones, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at the University of Utah Health.
