Delivery of a health care system is dependent on its ability to provide the correct and safe care to attain optimal outcomes for an individual patient. Diagnosis errors bring out tremendous problems, which lead to negative consequences for patients as well as healthcare costs (Rodziewicz et al., 2023). This paper discusses all the aspects that will most likely affect diagnostic errors, such as systemic, cognitive, and communication-related factors. Effective solutions proven by evidence and the role of nurses in tying up the gaps to guarantee safe and effective patient care while reducing the cost linked to documentation will be discussed and attention will be drawn to the participation of stakeholders in this process.
Diagnosis is the most critical error in healthcare, forming the chief patient rationalization and rooted in a systemic, cognitive, and communication cause. As stated by the National Academy of Medicine, diagnostic mistakes afflict about twelve million Americans a year, leading to adverse health outcomes, unwarranted treatments, and increased healthcare costs (Newman-Toker et al.,2019).
Problems with various types of diagnostic inaccuracies are directly associated with failures in diagnostic systems. Inadequate availability of diagnostic test facilities, scarcity of physicians with specialized knowledge, and poor follow-up care negatively impact the diagnostics process and increase the possibility of errors; thus, diagnosing one accurately and timely may be difficult (Meyer et al., 2021). Such delays in getting results by doing diagnostic imaging or lab tests in which the equipment is in need of supply or needs more time might cause the diagnosis to be missing or delayed.
Cognitive biases, such as anchoring, confirmation bias, and availability analytical, drag healthcare professionals like neurologists, anesthetists, and other practitioners. This negatively impacts clinical reasoning and decision-making; these biases can trigger the process of ruling out some diagnoses early or neglect the possibility of different diagnoses, thus resulting in incorrect diagnoses (Abimanyi-Ochom et al., 2019). Similarly, anchoring occurs when providers? Impressions for a disease are focused much more on symptoms shown at the onset instead of other possible contradictions and differentiations from similar diseases.
Deficiencies, which usually are associated with poor communication among healthcare team members, patients, and caregivers (providers and families), result in diagnostic errors through the processes of disruption of information sharing and collaboration. Integrity of information transmitted, incompatible matters between care transitions, or language problems result in wrong inference and diagnosis (Tariq et al., 2023). One of the scenarios on the issue of miscommunication involves patients who have concerns about the history of their diseases having the wrong contemplations and leading to an improper diagnosis.
Diagnostic mistakes in health institutions touch various areas, namely systemic failures, cognitive distortions, and communication gaps. These factors need an integrated instrument that bears system-based improvement, cognitive debiasing styles, and effective protocols for diagnosis to enable clinicians to diagnose patients on time, reducing the risk of medical errors (Hartigan et al., 2020).
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