New York residents who suffer from breathing problems may want to know that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has awarded a $1.5 million grant to analyze the use of spirometry testing and the effect of diagnostic error on patient outcomes. Contributing factors to the bestowing of the grant were studies that indicated 30 to 50 percent of patients may be given a misdiagnosis of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

When geriatric patients in New York and around the country return to their nursing homes after a hospitalization, they enter a danger zone for medical errors. When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services studied data from 2014 about these patient transfers, researchers discovered that close to 25 percent of the people with complicated medical conditions experienced harm within a few days after returning to their nursing facilities. Inadequate follow-up care or monitoring and medication mistakes accounted for the majority of these incidents.

People depend on doctors to provide reliable health care. Unfortunately, many individuals across New York and the rest of the United States are faced with misdiagnoses every year. This leads to patients undergoing sometimes expensive and dangerous treatments that do them no good.

September was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in New York as well as across the country and around the world. The purpose of this annual event is to provide parents and caregivers with information about the different types of cancers that children can contract as well as to raise funds for research and support.