Improving Patient Care by Addressing Diagnostic Errors in Healthcare

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Improving Patient Care by Addressing Diagnostic Errors in Healthcare

This paper closely looks into the diagnostic errors being made in the healthcare and how they impact Patient Care within the healthcare organizations. Following the problem, the paper will look into the organizational challenges posed because of the problem, how the problem has been addressed in the past and how the quality initiatives can bring in better outcomes in terms of better quality and patient care in the healthcare systems.

Diagnostic Errors and Their Impact on Patient Care

The National Academy of Medicine (2015) defined Diagnostic error as the failure to make an accurate and timely explanation of the patient’s healthcare problem/s or making a sound communication of their problem to them. It is a recognized threat to the public health that can even lead to adverse medical events (Hall et al., 2020) and thus derogatorily impacts patient care. Diagnostic errors account to over 5% of adults being affected in the OPDs and 6-17% of adverse events occurring in the hospital-settings, as reported by the Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Sciences, 2015). Since diagnosis directly impacts patient-care owing to the clinical decision being tailor-made as per the patient’s healthcare problem, making an accurate diagnosis is the key to quality patient care (National Academy of Sciences, 2015). It is thus evident that the diagnostic error is a major healthcare malpractice and a major quality related issue in the healthcare system.

Organizational Challenges Caused by Diagnostic Errors

An organization poses many challenges owing to the diagnostic errors made by the doctors and healthcare professionals in their clinical practice. For instance, diagnostic errors not only lead to negative health outcome leading to the organizations bearing the brunt of financial costs but also psychological stress (National Academy of Sciences, 2015). The organization thus poses many challenges related to physical, psychological, financial and organizational conflicts owing to diagnostic errors. 

Patient Safety Practices for Reducing Diagnostic Errors

Hall et al. (2020) describe four patient safety practices (PSPs) that help to decrease the diagnostic errors made in the clinical practice.

Clinical Decision Support and Result Notification Systems

 The measures that can largely minimize diagnostic errors are – the Clinical Decision Support (CDS), use of result notification systems (RNS), education as well as training and peer review (Hall et al., 2020). While the CDS through the health information technology (IT) advancements such as Electronic Health Record (EHR) helps to equip the stakeholders with the right knowledge and person-specific details that enhance communication and improve decision-making abilities, RNSs on the other hand decrease communication lapses that are among the major contributing factors to delayed diagnosis (Hall et al., 2020). 

Education, Training, and Peer Review

Also, Education and Training along with peer-review help to minimize biases and improve clinical outcomes (Hall et al., 2020). 

Conclusion

Concluding, the diagnostic errors are a hurdle in meeting right quality standards for achieving quality patient care. To combat the diagnostic errors, the various means mentioned above can be of great help, if practiced in the right way to the right person through right communication.

Improving Patient Care by Addressing Diagnostic Errors in Healthcare                                                   

References

Hall et al. (2020) Making Healthcare Safer III: A Critical Analysis of Existing and Emerging 

Patient Safety Practices. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Available at 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555525/

National Academy of Sciences (2015) Overview of Diagnostic Error in Health Care. National 

Academies Press. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK338594/