About 70 percent of diagnostic errors happen during the testing process, according to a new data analysis from ECRI. The study also found that, “issues processing medical tests, delays in referrals, and miscommunication among healthcare staff are key drivers of diagnostic errors.”
Additional key findings:
· Nearly 70 percent of errors “occurred during the testing process – including when healthcare staff are ordering, collecting, processing, obtaining results, or communicating results.
· Twelve percent of errors occurred in the monitoring and follow-up phase; with nearly nine percent during the referral and consultation phase.
· Of errors that occurred during testing, more than 23 percent were a result of a technical or processing error, like the misuse of testing equipment, a poorly processed specimen, or a clinician lacking the proper skill to conduct the test.
· Another 20 percent of testing errors were a result of mixed-up samples, mislabeled specimens, and tests performed on the wrong patient.”
The analysis also found that women and racial and ethnic minorities are at higher risk for diagnostic error. “ECRI’s PSO data only included race and ethnicity of patients in 17 percent of the incidents related to diagnostic error – pointing to a need for the industry to more comprehensively include and analyze race and ethnicity data in the analysis of diagnostic equity.”
ECRI analyzed 3,014 patient safety adverse events and “1,011 were determined to be related to diagnostic errors, then sorted into the appropriate step in the diagnostic process where the breakdown occurred.”
