Diagnostic safety remains a patient safety priority. This randomized study including emergency medicine and internal medicine physicians as well as medical students found that electronic differential diagnostic support increased the likelihood that the correct diagnosis appeared in the differential, regardless of whether the tool was used early or late in the diagnostic process.

Receiving feedback from colleagues may improve clinicians’ diagnostic reasoning skills. By building on existing models such as Safer Dx, and collaborating with professionals outside of the healthcare field, researchers developed the Diagnosis Learning Cycle, a model intended to improve diagnosis through peer feedback.

The authors interviewed 32 individuals with expertise in learning health systems to explore how such systems can work towards diagnostic excellence. Data, management, and behavioral barriers are discussed, such as the need to standardize measurement, the need for measures that both define and track errors, and that clinicians lack tools to self-assess diagnostic skills. The authors discuss how machine learning and artificial intelligence can be leveraged to advance diagnostic excellence, but that any meaningful integration must be accomplished through mutually beneficial collaborations among researchers and care providers.

The investigators studied medical students, senior residents, and faculty to explore the relationship between physicians' confidence in making a diagnosis and whether the diagnosis was correct.