BMJ Quality & Safety· 2013Q1
The incidence of diagnostic error in medicine
- 636citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
Measuring the incidence of diagnostic error is essential for research and quality improvement, with trigger tools, standardized patients, and voluntary reporting showing the most promise.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Diagnostic errors cause substantial patient harm and mortality.
- Existing methods for studying diagnostic errors have limitations in establishing incidence.
- Measuring diagnostic error incidence is vital for research and quality improvement.
- Trigger tools, standardized patients, and voluntary reporting are promising methods for incidence measurement.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
A wide variety of research studies suggest that breakdowns in the diagnostic process result in a staggering toll of harm and patient deaths. These include autopsy studies, case reviews, surveys of patient and physicians, voluntary reporting systems, using standardised patients, second reviews, diagnostic testing audits and closed claims reviews. Although these different approaches provide important information and unique insights regarding diagnostic errors, each has limitations and none is well suited to establishing the incidence of diagnostic error in actual practice, or the aggregate rate of error and harm. We argue that being able to measure the incidence of diagnostic error is essential to enable research studies on diagnostic error, and to initiate quality improvement projects aimed at reducing the risk of error and harm. Three approaches appear most promising in this regard: (1) using 'trigger tools' to identify from electronic health records cases at high risk for diagnostic error; (2) using standardised patients (secret shoppers) to study the rate of error in practice; (3) encouraging both patients and physicians to voluntarily report errors they encounter, and facilitating this process.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. BMJ Quality & Safety, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Family Practice
Family PracticeMedicine