This article defines eight types of cognitive biases encountered in breast radiology. It proposes individual- and organizational-level approaches to recognizing and mitigating the effects of these biases.

This paper discusses potential vulnerabilities in the laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19, such as sample misidentification, inappropriate or inadequate sample collection, sample contamination, as well as the challenges to the diagnostic accuracy of current COVID-19 tests.

Structured communication methods such as SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) or ISBAR (identify, situation, background, assessment, recommendation)  were developed to improve handoffs in the hospital, particularly from nursing to physicians, and to reduce the impact of poor communication on adverse events. This study presents a digital pocket card incorporating ISBAR standards that can be used by nurses to facilitate patient handoffs and reporting.

There are challenges to identifying and measuring diagnostic errors in healthcare settings. This systematic review found evidence that team meetings, error documentation, and trigger algorithms in various clinical settings may reduce diagnostic errors. The authors also found that while there have been numerous studies on interventions targeting diagnostic errors, few such interventions are being used in clinical settings.

Distractions are known to be a significant patient safety issue in many settings. This study examined the impact of distractions during obstetric ultrasounds and sonographers expressed concern that distractions increased false negative screenings and could lead to missed diagnoses.  

Point-of-care test results are often manually transcribed into the electronic health record, which introduces risks of manual transcription errors. The authors of this study took advantage of a redundant workflow in which point-of-care blood glucose results were uploaded and also manually entered by staff. They estimate that 5 in 1000 manually entered results contain clinically significant transcription errors and call for interfacing point-to-care instruments as a patient safety strategy.

Common blood sample errors, such as mislabeling or patient misidentification, can contribute to diagnostic delays. This review highlights the importance of using open-ended questions to gather information from patients and suggests that specimens be labeled with the patient present to ensure accurate verification. A WebM&M commentary explored problems associated with mislabeled blood samples.

Decision support tools can help reduce diagnostic uncertainty. Discussing how artificial intelligence can be utilized to inform diagnostic decision making and improve the accuracy of cardiac image interpretation, this review suggests that use of such technology can reduce production pressure and cognitive load for imaging physicians.

This retrospective analysis of more than 800,000 mammograms examined the effect of a second review of images. With a second reader, fewer women had to return for more imaging and more cancers were detected, suggesting that double reading may enhance the diagnostic performance of mammography.

Learning from adverse events is a core component of patient safety improvement. This review explores the application of this concept in radiation oncology, successful practices, and challenges for incident learning system implementation in the specialty.

Interpretive radiology errors can result in delays that contribute to patient harm. This commentary describes human factors that affect diagnostic accuracy and reviews strategies to address weaknesses at the individual and systems level.

Prior research demonstrates that interruptions in health care can compromise patient safety. In this study, researchers observed interruptions experienced by nuclear medicine technologists in their work environment and found that some interruptions were helpful. In addition, technologists had developed personal strategies to optimize for safety.

This commentary reviews nine cases involving interpretation errors associated with chest radiographs of children to illustrate common mistakes that can occur in pediatric imaging. Each case concludes with a clinical teaching point for practice improvement.

Repeat interpretation of radiological images is known to yield more accurate diagnosis. Investigators interpreted more than 1000 abdominal CT scans twice and found clinically significant changes on the second read in 14% of cases. The authors suggest that using expert second radiology interpretation may enhance diagnostic accuracy.

Magnetic resonance safety events can lead to serious patient harm. This commentary provides recommendations from expert consensus to help organizations design and implement a range of magnetic resonance imaging services. The authors also define three levels of management responsibilities required to support those recommendations in a various settings.

Most research has focused on developing and implementing checklists in surgical settings. This guideline recommends a set of pre-procedure checklist items and offers rationales for each to help hospitals develop a checklist for use in interventional radiology.