SALT LAKE CITY – When it comes to timely and accurate medical diagnosis, Utah is the safest place in the nation to seek treatment of ailments.
That was the finding of a recent nationwide survey of patient safety risks conducted by the Florida personal injury law firm of Freedland Harwin Valori Gander Legal.
Based on data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the researchers at FHV Legal ranked Utah as the top state in the nation for timely and accurate medical diagnosis.
The legal experts found that Utah is the safest state in which to undergo care, driven by its high quality hospital throughput.
In medical terminology, hospital throughput – which is also often referred to as bed management – is the skill of getting the right patient into the right bed at the right time, from the moment he or she enters the hospital until they are discharged.
Beds are a critical resource, particularly in specialty areas such as intensive care and surgical units.
The Beehive State was also cited for having one of the most efficient emergency care systems and a readmission rate for hospital patients that is significant below the national average, suggesting a high level of diagnostic accuracy and patient stability prior to discharge.
All of those factors combine to create a statewide diagnostic environment where delays are kept to a minimum, the FHV Legal study emphasized.
“A delayed diagnosis is often a symptom of a fractured healthcare workforce,” according to Daniel Harwin, one of the partners at FHV Legal.
“When access to providers is limited, the risk of adverse medical outcomes spikes, making it vital for patients to know their rights when ‘standard of care’ is compromised by systemic delays.”
An estimated 800,000 Americans suffer serious harm from misdiagnosis of diseases annually, according to a 2023 study by David Newman-Toker, a professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of its Center for Diagnostic Excellence.
That annual estimate includes about 370,000 patients who died and another 425,000 who are permanently disabled.
To identify regions where patient safety is most at risk, the FHV Legal study analyzed performance data from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Definitive Healthcare using a weighted index that factored in missed diagnostic opportunities, surgical death rates, complications from treatment, hospital readmission rates and other medical concerns.
The study found that western states tended to dominate in terms of receiving timely and accurate diagnosis of ailments. In addition to Utah ranking as the safest state, others in the top ten of the FHV study included Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas.
Based in Fort Lauderdale, Freedland Harwin Valori Gander Legal is a personal injury, medical malpractice and consumer justice law firm involved in some of the nation’s most significant litigation.