Missed Alerts for Abnormal Imaging Studies
A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association evaluated the efficacy of computerized systems to notify clinicians about abnormal results obtained from imaging studies. The team from the VA and Baylor particularly considered what happened with test results that were never acknowledged.
Over one-third of automatically generated alerts for abnormal findings were not acknowledged by clinicians. Those that were never received were not included in the analysis. Among four percent of the issued alerts, follow up was completely lost after four weeks. Overall, the incidence of loss to follow up was 0.02 percent per each outpatient visit.
The team noted that the rate of loss with electronic alerts appears to be lower than that associated with other methods to notify clinicians about abnormal findings from imaging evaluation.
This study, generally, provides further evidence about the utility of information technology tools to streamline care and reduce the incidence of errors. A potential exists for improvement in this type of notification system, such as a control which forces clinicians to view the image and respond with another evaluation step.
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July 31, 2007 Related topics: Quality, Safety, Errors, Radiology