Missed diagnostic opportunities often involve multiple process breakdowns and can lead to serious avoidable patient harm. Based on a web-based survey of 1,594 emergency medicine physicians, missed diagnostic opportunities most frequently occur in children who present to the emergency department with undifferentiated symptoms (e.g., abdominal pain, fever, vomiting) and often involve issues related to the patient/parent-provider interaction, such as misinterpreting patient history or inadequate physical exam.

AHRQ's 2022 report Diagnostic Errors in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review, which reported an estimated 7.4 million patients receive a misdiagnosis in the emergency department every year, garnered public, practitioner, and researcher attention. In this peer-reviewed commentary, the authors critique several components of the report. They also support AHRQ's recommended next steps, and further call for additional public and private funding opportunities to continue improving diagnostic accuracy in the emergency department.

Vulnerable populations, such as those with limited English proficiency, minoritized race or ethnicity, migrant populations, or patients qualifying for public insurance, may be at higher risk for adverse health events. In this review, researchers sought to identify frequency and causes of diagnostic error of vulnerable populations presenting to the emergency department with cardiovascular or cerebrovascular/neurological symptoms. Black patients presenting with cardiovascular symptoms had significantly higher odds of diagnostic error. Other demographic factors did not show similar associations, nor did studies of patients with cerebrovascular/neurological symptoms.

Emergency room crowding is a persistent factor that degrades safety for patients of all ages. This collection provides background, best practices, and recommendations to reduce emergency department crowding and its negative impact on pediatric care. The publications examine factors that influence crowding and improvement at the input, departmental, and hospital/outpatient stages of emergency care.

Racial and ethnic health disparities are receiving increased attention, and yet structural racism continues to negatively impact communities of color. This review identified only six papers studying the impact of structural racism on severe maternal morbidity (SMM). Despite heterogeneity in measures and outcomes, the studies all demonstrated a link between structural racism and SMM; additional research is required.

The reduction of cognitive bias is generating increased interest as a diagnostic error reduction strategy. This statement introduces the concept of cognitive bias and discusses methods to manage the presence of bias in obstetrics such as debiasing training and teamwork.

Understanding human causes of diagnostic errors can lead to more specific targeted, specific recommendations and interventions. Using three classification instruments, researchers examined a series of serious adverse events related to diagnostic errors in the emergency department. Most of the human errors were based on intended actions and could be classified as mistakes or violations. Errors were more frequently made during the assessment and testing phases of the diagnostic process.

Misdiagnosis in the emergency department (ED) can result in increased morbidity and mortality. This retrospective chart review of patients admitted from the ED to hospital explored the concordance of ED admission and hospital discharge diagnoses. Results show 21.77% of patients had discordant diagnoses; discordant diagnosis was associated with increased length of stay, mortality, and up-triage to ICU.

Building on prior research on missed myocardial infarction, this study used the SPADE approach to identify delays in sepsis diagnosis. Using claims data, researchers used a ‘look back’ analysis to identify treat-and-release emergency department (ED) visits in the month prior to sepsis hospitalizations and identify common diagnoses linked to downstream sepsis hospitalizations.

Missed or delayed diagnosis of sepsis can lead to serious patient harm. This study used a Symptom-Disease Pair Analysis of Diagnostic Error (SPADE) “look-forward” analysis to measure potential misdiagnosis of sepsis in patients discharged from the emergency department (ED) with treat-and-release fluid and electrolyte disorders (FED) or altered mental status (AMS). FED and AMS were associated with a spike in sepsis hospitalizations in the 7-day period following the ED visit. The authors suggest SPADE could be used to compare sepsis diagnostic performance across institutions and regions; develop interventions for targeted subgroups; and update early warning systems for sepsis diagnosis.

Diagnostic errors continue to be a patient safety concern, including in pediatric critical care. This systematic review explored the prevalence, impact, and contributing factors to diagnostic errors in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). The most common diagnostic errors occurred in cardiovascular, infectious, congenital, and neurologic conditions; cognitive and systems factors were associated with diagnostic errors. Future research should focus on disease- and systems-level determinants. 

Imaging is an important tool in the pediatric emergency department to guide diagnosis and treatment. In this study, researchers analyzed more than 3.6 million emergency department visits for patients younger than 18 years to evaluate racial and ethnic differences in diagnostic imaging rates. One-third of visits by non-Hispanic white children included imaging, compared with 24% of visits by non-Hispanic Black and 26% of Hispanic children. Given the risks of both radiation exposure and missed diagnoses, strategies to mitigate these disparities must be investigated.

Diagnostic error is an ongoing patient safety challenge that can result in patient harm. This literature review identified a set of emergency department (ED)-focused electronic health record (EHR) triggers (e.g., death following ED visit, change in treating service after admission, unscheduled return to the ED resulting in admission) and non-EHR based signals (e.g., patient complaints, referral to risk management) with the potential to screen ED visits for diagnostic safety events.

Disruptive and rude behavior can hinder teamwork and diminish patient safety. This randomized, simulation-based study including attendings, fellows, and residents explored whether rudeness during handoff affects the likelihood for challenging a diagnostic error. The authors found that rudeness may disproportionally hinder diagnostic performance among less experienced physicians.

The hectic and complex environment of emergency care can reduce diagnostic safety. This article discusses clinical reasoning and decision-making strategies used by emergency medicine physicians, contributing factors to diagnostic errors occurring in emergency medicine (e.g., overconfidence, cognitive stress, anchoring bias), and strategies to reduce the risk of error. A previous WebM&M commentary discussed an incident involving diagnostic delay in the emergency department.

Diagnostic error is an ongoing patient safety challenge, and can be exacerbated by the hectic pace of the emergency department (ED). This study assessed the feasibility of the Leveraging Patient’s Experience to Improve Diagnosis (LEAPED) program to measure patient-reported diagnostic error after ED discharge. Across three EDs, patient uptake of the program was high. Findings show that 23% of patients did not receive an explanation of their health problem upon discharge, and one-quarter of those patients did not understand the next steps after leaving the ED.

The symptom-disease pair analysis of diagnostic error approach, or SPADE approach, measures diagnostic errors resulting in adverse events using two analytic pathways – the ‘look back’ analysis identifies symptoms associated with adverse events and identifies the symptom-specific harm rate per hospitalization and the ‘look forward’ analysis measures the disease-specific harm rate per symptomatic discharge. Using data from 2009 to 2017, this retrospective analysis looked at Emergency Department (ED) visits within 30 days of a hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) to identify symptoms linked to probable missed diagnoses. Within 30 days of a subsequent hospitalization for AMI, common ED discharge diagnoses included chest pain and dyspnea, representing 574 probable missed AMIs. The authors estimate that these results correspond to approximately 10,000 potentially-preventable harms annually in the United States.  

This article describes emergency department (ED)-related adverse events in pediatric patients presenting to the ED at a pediatric hospital in Canada over a one-year period.  Among 1,319 patients at 3-months follow-up, 33 patients (2.5%) reported an adverse event related to their ED care.  The majority of these events (88%) were preventable. Most of the events involved diagnostic (45.5%) or management issues (51.5%) and resulted in symptoms lasting more than one day (72.7%).

Research has suggested that health care providers’ emotions may impact patient safety. These authors conducted 86 semi-structured interviews with emergency department (ED) nurses and physicians to better understand their emotional triggers, beliefs about emotional influences on patient safety, and emotional management strategies. Patients often triggered both positive and negative emotions; hospital- or systems-level factors primarily triggered negative emotions. Providers were aware that negative emotions can adversely impact clinical decision-making and place patients at risk; future research should explore whether emotional regulation strategies can mitigate these safety risks.