Improve Your Diagnostics Accuracy and Avoid Malpractice in the Emergency Room

Improve Your Diagnostics Accuracy and Avoid Malpractice in the Emergency Room ER physicians must avoid errors and malpractice issues. They can use professional medical transcription services for accurate medical documentation.

The emergency department in a healthcare facility treats people with serious health conditions without prior appointment.ER physicians are specialized in emergency medicine and ensure that critical patient data is recorded in a timely manner. Therefore, the assistance of a medical transcription service provider is essential for quick and appropriate medical documentation.

The emergency room is one of the busiest departments in a hospital and errors can lead to devastating results. Studies have shown that emergency medicine has higher rates of error than most medical specialties, and that nearly half of all medical malpractice injuries are caused in emergency rooms. Malpractice in the ER can lead to many life-threatening situations like severe cardiac damage or death from undiagnosed heart attack or embolism, paralysis or death from undiagnosed stroke, loss or severe damage to limbs or organs due to misdiagnosis and infections.

According to Coverys, with more than 138 million visits to emergency rooms annually, ERs are the fourth most common healthcare setting for malpractice claims. Coverys is a medical liability firm that insures 42,000 medical professionals and 800 healthcare organizations and their reports point out several facts:     

EDs accounted for about 13% of all medical liability claims and surgery was the top target for medical liability claims, accounting for about 26% of claims.

56% of ED claims have failed or delayed in making a diagnosis.

The most common conditions identified on ED claims were cardiac and vascular illnesses, accounting for 23% of the total, followed by infections (18%) and neurological conditions (8%).

More than one-third of ED claims involved the death of a patient.

The top risk management issues in EDs were clinical judgment (44%), clinical systems (10%), and documentation including electronic health records (10%).

The Coverys report also suggests some risk management suggestions in 11 areas of the ER:    

Transport and arrival Crafting safe and reliable triage Safety of patients in the waiting room Improving diagnostic accuracy and laboratory testing

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Opioid prescribing Diversity such as care of transgender patients Approaches to specialty consultations Minimizing and preventing the boarding of patients Admission and transfer processes Treating repeat patients

Here are some of the recommendations to improve diagnostic accuracy. 

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Care transitions: The emergency department must take measures to improve communication at all transitions of care. With standardized handoff process you can communicate and transfer crucial information clearly, and it is essential for safely moving the patients in the ER. Evaluation of patients: Patient evaluation should occur on an ongoing basis in the ER which requires documentation of patient details at prescribed intervals. Timely documentation is as important as timely communication for the safety of patients.

Team effort: ER physicians should communicate clearly and efficiently with laboratories and radiology professionals and other healthcare providers in the care team. Proper communication between departments is also essential for better patient care and safety.

Test results: ER physicians must have a protocol to manage communication of outstanding test results for the patient, primary care provider, and consultant. The protocol should be a permanent procedure that should be included in everyday routine that helps to customize the electronic system and support the protocol and its objectives.

Decision support: Clinical decision support toolsshould be implemented to help clinicians in the diagnostics process like practice guidelines for high risk presentation, clinical decision application and providing access to radiologists and pharmacists to helpwith diagnosis and treatment. In a fast-paced world where it is difficult to provide accurate medical history, ER physicians should consider additional resources like medical transcription services to get timely and accurate medical reports.

The emergency room is the front door of the hospital and they deal with various kinds of diseases and medical conditions which require the assistance of trained and experienced healthcare providers. Also, accurate medical documentation is indispensable. Ideally, the emergency department can utilize EHR-integrated emergency room medical transcription services to ensure comprehensive and efficient entry of patient data into the EHR system.

With such meticulous record keeping, ERs can provide the best medical services to their patients, avoid malpractice issues, increase efficiency and bring about excellent healthcare outcomes.

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www.medicaltranscriptionservicecompany.com

918-221-7809