The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, a nonprofit patient advocacy organization created to raise awareness of and reduce diagnostic errors, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Wednesday and closed after a year of financial challenges.
SIDM’s decision to shut down came after it was unable to find new grants or other sources of income to offset its losses, the organization said in an email to stakeholders. In fiscal 2023, SIDM reported a net loss of $2.7 million, according to tax documents. In its bankruptcy filing, the organization reported assets of $23,000 and more than $450,000 in liabilities.
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“The heart of SIDM has always been its volunteers from the patient, clinical, education, quality improvement and research communities,” the organization's board of directors said in the email to stakeholders. “We hope the community will rebuild and advance our mission, even without SIDM as a guiding force.”
SIDM leadership did not respond to requests for comment.
Established in 2011, SIDM has funded numerous research projects focused on standardized practices and solutions to diagnostic errors, while advocating for policy that helped the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality secure $20 million in funding for patient safety efforts.
The organization also built a coalition of more than 70 health systems and industry groups committed to making progress on diagnostic errors, including Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, Danville, Pennsylvania-headquartered Geisinger, the American Academy of Family Physicians, Leapfrog Group and the National Quality Forum.
“We saw failure to have an accurate and timely diagnosis as the number one patient safety issue,” said Paul Epner, founding member and former CEO of SIDM. “Our vision was really to educate, build awareness, catalyze change and drive an improved healthcare system.”
For nonprofit organizations like SIDM, relying on grant funding as a main source of revenue comes with significant risks, said Stephanie Mercado, CEO and executive director of the National Association for Healthcare Quality.
“It’s important to have a broader portfolio offering so that if the grant funding were to cease to exist the organization doesn’t cease to exist,” she said.
Despite its financial challenges toward the end, SIDM was pivotal in advancing the issue of diagnostic safety in collaboration with agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as lawmakers, Mercado said.
She said she hopes SIDM’s work will continue through organizations including AHRQ, which received funding from Congress in 2022 to address failures in the diagnostic process, and the University of California San Francisco, which recently founded a new Coordinating Center for Diagnostic Excellence.
“This news should not send a signal to the market about the importance of diagnostic medical errors or the quality and safety agenda,” Mercado said. “Quality and safety are going to gain ground over the next decade without a doubt.”
In its bankruptcy filing, made in the Southern District of New York, SIDM listed more than 100 creditors, including Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine, Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Los Angeles-based Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
