The busy and complex emergency department environment harbors pressures can that hinder diagnostic safety. This review discusses the characteristics of emergency medicine that contribute to overreliance on heuristics and susceptibility to bias in decision making. The authors highlight the need to better monitor diagnostic error in the emergency department to inform the design of improvement activities. A previous WebM&M commentary discussed diagnostic delay in the emergency department.

This study used written medical cases to examine whether simulated time pressure or interruptions affect diagnostic accuracy among resident and attending emergency medicine physicians. While the experienced physicians answered the questions more quickly and accurately compared to resident physicians, diagnostic accuracy was not compromised by time pressure or interruptions for either group in this study.