Medical errors are a major concern in healthcare, with an estimated 210,000 Americans and 98,000 Indians losing their lives each year due to such errors (globally it’s 2.6 million) — that’s the equivalent of ten jumbo jets crashing every week! In fact, medical errors are responsible for more deaths annually than either breast cancer or AIDS.
What are diagnostic errors?
However, diagnostic errors — defined as the failure to establish an accurate explanation of a patient’s health problem or communicate that explanation to the patient — can occur.
Correct diagnosis is crucial in healthcare, as an incorrect diagnosis can have serious consequences for a patient’s treatment and prognosis. The process of diagnosis involves identifying a disease, condition, or injury from its signs and symptoms, and may involve gathering a patient’s history, performing a physical examination, and conducting various tests such as blood tests, imaging tests, and biopsies. The goal is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the patient’s situation and inform subsequent healthcare decisions.
For every diagnostic error there are a number of root causes, which are mentioned in the table below:
There are two main types of diagnostic errors: clinical errors and laboratory errors.
Clinical errors:
Clinical errors are caused by human error and equipment faults, with human error being responsible for about 60–70% of clinical errors. This probably occurs due to limits in situation analysis, environment, workload, and organisational culture.
These situations of clinical errors are quite uncontrollable but what can be controlled on the other hand are the laboratory errors led by artificial intelligence which will ultimately help in correct diagnosis which will also help to reduce the percentage of clinical errors.
Laboratory errors:
Laboratory error is defined as “any defect from ordering tests through reporting results, as well as appropriately interpreting and reacting to them”.
Patient safety is directly impacted by the information provided by the medical laboratory, and patients may be harmed if there is a problem with any of the strategic, operational (preanalytical, analytical, post-analytical), or support procedures. The potential failure mechanisms in the laboratory are made visible and attempted to be fixed when the safety of the various procedures is increased.
The most common errors occurring in the laboratory include:
-patient ID error.
-sample delayed in transit.
-wrong test performed.
-test performed inconsistently.
-proficiency testing error
-False negative result
-Delayed reports
-Missing reports
In post examination phase the error can occur in “report creation and result interpretation” which can be
- transcription error in reporting
2. report illegible
3. report sent to the wrong location
4. report not sent at all.
These errors can be reduced with the help of some modernised tools and equipment as the goal of Laboratory Practice is to provide Reliable Laboratory Data to the healthcare provider to assist in clinical decision-making i.e. Quality Assurance.
Conclusion
Lab errors can happen often or randomly. When resolving errors in a clinical lab environment, it’s crucial to take a variety of factors into account, including your lab technology, procedures, and people.
To reduce errors, data & technology must be leveraged to evolve the traditional system.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555525/
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21794/improving-diagnosis-in-health-care
https://media.tghn.org/medialibrary/2014/08/Module_14_GCLP_CORRECTIVE_ACTION_PREVENTIVE_ACTION.ppt
https://biomolecularsystems.com/how-can-errors-be-minimised-in-a-medical-lab/
https://alwaysculture.com/hcahps/communication-medications/8-most-common-causes-of-medical-errors/
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=75050
Davidson’s principle and practice of medicine
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