Failure to Communicate
Doctors fail to report or document their findings of abnormal medical results in 1-in-14 cases
Patients breathe sighs of relief when the doctor doesn't call with bad news, but a new study shows that they might not want to relax so quickly. Research shows that physicians fail to report to patients, or to document that they had informed them, abnormal test results one out of every 14 times.
Dr. Lawrence P. Casalino, associate professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City, and his national team analyzed 5,434 patient records from 23 physician practices around the country. The failure rate varies from practice to practice, ranging from nearly zero to one in four, but one constant popped up in the data: the simpler the process for managing test results, the better the chances your diagnosis won't go unreported.
What's more, offices that use electronic medical records often had the same or worse failure-to-inform rates than their paperbound counterparts if their test results management techniques were flawed.
"This study demonstrates why health IT hardware alone will not improve care," says Dr. Mark Smith, president and CEO of the California HealthCare Foundation, which financed the study. "Ensuring that processes are in place to efficiently notify patients of their lab results should be part of the meaningful use of electronic health records."
Dr. Casalino attributes the failure to report or document to physician practices that lack an explicit system for managing test results. And in many cases, physicians and their staff told patients that "no news is good news." According to Casalino, this is a dangerous assumption.
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