| Follow us on Twitter |
The New York Time reports on Tuesday that scientists, led by Dr. Lawrence P. Casalino, a Weill Cornell Medical College associate professor, who conducted research regarding the practice of some primary care physicians found that as much as 7% do not automatically report abnormal test results to their patients.
The study reviewed the records of 5,434 patients among 19 independent primary care practices and 4 at academic medical centers. The patient’s records were searched to find proof that they were informed, in a timely fashion, of results found in the records of abnormal blood tests, X rays or other imaging results.
The doctors surveyed offered various explanations as to why patients had not been informed, among them that the patient had been informed, although documentation of that was not to be found and that the results were not medically significant.
However after accounting for these less than clear cases, there still remained 135 failures to inform among the 1,889 abnormal results.
Although the results were varied some academic medical centers demonstrated as high as a 23% failure to inform.
A doctor who was not involved in the study, Dr. Eric G. Poon, director of clinical informatics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, says the study was of high-quality. He said “But the truth of the matter is that a lot of things can fall through the cracks. Information is handed down from one person to another to another before the doctor actually sees it.”
Some of the news lends support to the initiative sought by President Obama to increase the use of electronic medical records as part of his plans for economic stimulus. Offices that used such electronic medical records had lower failure rates than those that used only paper documents.
The authors of the study concluded that a simple process would cut down on the errors found:
Test results go the doctor, who signs off, has their office advise the patient and documents. Also patients are told to call if their results are not reported within an appropriate time.
The study, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine demonstrates that most practices do not follow these simple steps
The Times reports that Dr. Casalino said to patients, “Don’t assume that ‘no news is good news’ when you have tests done. That’s a very dangerous assumption. If you’ve had a test done and you don’t hear about it after a week or two goes by, call the doctor’s office.”
Author: David Perecman
E mail: Dperecman@perecman.com
Blog URL: Newyorkpersonalinjuryblog.com
Posted June 24th, 2009 by Anonymous
