Abstract
Diagnostic delay in the outpatient setting is an emerging safety priority that health information technology (HIT) should help address. However, diagnostic delays have persisted, and new safety concerns associated with the use of HIT have emerged. To analyze HIT-related outpatient diagnostic delays within a large, integrated health care system. This cohort study involved qualitative content analysis of safety concerns identified in aggregated root cause analysis (RCA) data related to HIT and outpatient diagnostic delays. The setting was the US Department of Veterans Affairs using all RCAs submitted to the Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for Patient Safety from January 1, 2013, to July 31, 2018. Common themes associated with the role of HIT-related safety concerns were identified and categorized according to the Health IT Safety framework for measuring, monitoring, and improving HIT safety. This framework includes 3 related domains (ie, safe HIT, safe use of HIT, and using HIT to improve safety) situated within an 8-dimensional sociotechnical model accounting for interacting technical and nontechnical variables associated with safety. Hence, themes identified enhanced understanding of the sociotechnical context and domain of HIT safety involved. Of 214 RCAs categorized by the terms delay and outpatient submitted during the study period, 88 were identified as involving diagnostic delays and HIT, from which 172 unique HIT-related safety concerns were extracted (mean [SD], 1.97 [1.53] per RCA). Most safety concerns (82.6% [142 of 172]) involved problems with safe use of HIT, predominantly sociotechnical factors associated with people, workflow and communication, and a poorly designed human-computer interface. Fewer safety concerns involved problems with safe HIT (14.5% [25 of 172]) or using HIT to improve safety (0.3% [5 of 172]). The following 5 key high-risk areas for diagnostic delays emerged: managing electronic health record inbox notifications and communication, clinicians gathering key diagnostic information, technical problems, data entry problems, and failure of a system to track test results. This qualitative study of a national RCA data set suggests that interventions to reduce outpatient diagnostic delays could aim to improve test result management, interoperability, data visualization, and order entry, as well as to decrease information overload.
Highlights
Diagnostic delays are a major threat to outpatient safety.[1]
Of 214 root cause analysis (RCA) categorized by the terms delay and outpatient submitted during the study period, 88 were identified as involving diagnostic delays and Health information technology (HIT), from which 172 unique HIT-related safety concerns were extracted
The following 5 key high-risk areas for diagnostic delays emerged: managing electronic health record inbox notifications and communication, clinicians gathering key diagnostic information, technical problems, data entry problems, and failure of a system to track test results. This qualitative study of a national RCA data set suggests that interventions to reduce outpatient diagnostic delays could aim to improve test result management, interoperability, data visualization, and order entry, as well as to decrease information overload
Summary
Diagnostic delays are a major threat to outpatient safety.[1]. Health information technology (HIT) can reduce diagnostic delays by reliably transmitting and tracking test results, supporting intelligent test selection, improving information access and display, and facilitating electronic communication.[2,3] problems persist despite electronic health record (EHR) implementation, and new unintended safety concerns have emerged, spurring efforts to understand the consequences of HIT on diagnosis.[2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]For instance, inadequate test result follow-up is a substantial cause of diagnostic delays in EHR-enabled settings.[14]. Similar follow-up failures can occur in bladder, gastrointestinal, and breast cancer diagnosis.[25,26,27,28]
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