Implementation of Electronic Triggers to Identify Diagnostic Errors in Emergency Departments
Authors: Vaghani Viralkumar , Gupta Ashish , Mir Usman , Wei Li , Murphy Daniel R. , Mushtaq Umair , Sittig Dean F. , Zimolzak Andrew J. , Singh Hardeep 
Published: December 2024

Importance

Missed diagnosis can lead to preventable patient harm.

Objective

To develop and implement a portfolio of electronic triggers (e-triggers) and examine their performance for identifying missed opportunities in diagnosis (MODs) in emergency departments (EDs).

Design, Setting, and Participants

In this retrospective medical record review study of ED visits at 1321 Veterans Affairs health care sites, rules-based e-triggers were developed and implemented using a national electronic health record repository. These e-triggers targeted 6 high-risk presentations for MODs in treat-and-release ED visits. A high-risk stroke e-trigger was applied to treat-and-release ED visits from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2020. A symptom-disease dyad e-trigger was applied to visits from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2019. High-risk abdominal pain, unexpected ED return, unexpected hospital return, and test result e-triggers were applied to visits from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2019. At least 100 randomly selected flagged records were reviewed by physician reviewers for each e-trigger. Data were analyzed between January 2024 and April 2024.

Exposures

Treat-and-release ED visits involving high-risk stroke, symptom-disease dyads, high-risk abdominal pain, unexpected ED return, unexpected hospital return, and abnormal test results not followed up after initial ED visit.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Trained physician reviewers evaluated the presence/absence of MODs at ED visits and recorded data on patient and clinician characteristics, types of diagnostic process breakdowns, and potential harm from MODs.

Results

The high-risk stroke e-trigger was applied to 8 792 672 treat-and-release ED visits (4 967 283 unique patients); the symptom-disease dyad e-trigger was applied to 3 692 454 visits (2 070 979 patients); and high-risk abdominal pain, unexpected ED return, unexpected hospital return, and test result e-triggers were applied to 1 845 905 visits (1 032 969 patients), overall identifying 203, 1981, 170, 116 785, 14 879, and 2090 trigger-positive records, respectively. Review of 625 randomly selected patient records (mean [SD] age, 62.5 [15.2] years; 553 [88.5%] male) showed the following MOD counts and positive predictive values (PPVs) within each category: 47 MODs (PPV, 47.0%) for stroke, 31 MODs (PPV, 25.8%) for abdominal pain, 11 MODs (PPV, 11.0%) for ED returns, 23 MODs (PPV, 23.0%) for hospital returns, 18 MODs (PPV, 18.0%) for symptom-disease dyads, and 55 MODs (PPV, 52.4%) for test results. Patients with MODs were slightly older than those without (mean [SD] age, 65.6 [14.5] vs 61.2 [15.3] years; P &amp;lt; .001). Reviewer agreement was favorable (range, 72%-100%). In 108 of 130 MODs (83.1%; excluding MODs related to the test result e-trigger), the most common diagnostic process breakdown involved the patient-clinician encounter. In 185 total MODs, 20 patients experienced severe harm (10.8%), and 54 patients experienced moderate harm (29.2%).

Conclusions and Relevance

In this retrospective medical record review study, rules-based e-triggers were useful for post hoc detection of MODs in ED visits. Interventions to target ED work system factors are urgently needed to support patient-clinician encounters and minimize harm from diagnostic errors.