Electronic health record (EHR) systems can be used to identify and correct diagnostic errors by clinicians, including improperly ordered laboratory tests, according to a study sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The majority of misdiagnoses identified in the study were attributed to clinical process breakdowns in patient encounters, typically related to failures to properly record patient health histories, said AHRQ. Researchers for the study, titled “Types and Origins of Diagnostic Errors in Primary Care Settings,” used EHRs to examine medical records at an unidentified large urban Veterans Affairs health facility and a large integrated private health care system between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007. In the 190 clinical encounters studied, researchers identified 68 cases of diagnostic errors. Errors stemming from process breakdowns were most frequently related to patient-practitioner clinical encounters, the study said. Nearly 80 percent of the errors identified were related to patient-practitioner encounter issues, with referrals the second-most common cause of errors at 19.5 percent of all cases. The most common problems linked to clinical encounters were failures to properly record patient history (56.3 percent), examination (47.4 percent), and improperly ordered laboratory tests (57.4 percent), the study said. Most errors were associated…
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