Awareness Of Errors Research Articles

Inpatients' expectations and experiences of hospital pharmacy services: qualitative study

AbstractIntroductionHospital pharmacists' have traditionally focused on the manufacture and supply of medicines. However, the increasing complexity and range of medicines and a greater awareness of medication errors has facilitated a change towards a patient‐centred role. Given this movement, it is surprising that a search of the published literature shows very little research that evaluated patients' views of hospital‐based pharmacy services.ObjectiveTo explore inpatients' expectations and experiences of hospital‐based pharmacy services.Study setting and designFace‐to‐face semi‐structured interviews with inpatients admitted to acute medical wards of threeNHSgeneral hospitals.Principal findingsSeventy‐four inpatients were interviewed: 37 were male with average age 73 years (age range of 19 –86 years). The predominate number of participants (62/74, 84%) being in the 65–80 years of age group. Thematic analysis of the data was driven by three themes; patients' expectations of the pharmacist's involvement in their treatment and care, the patients' experiences of any interaction that may have taken place and the patients' evaluation of their interaction with the pharmacist.ConclusionsThere was a dichotomy of expectations and opinions from patients about the role of hospital pharmacists and the services being provided. As pharmacists' roles are developing towards a patient‐orientated model in which pharmacists have direct contact with patients and their care, it is important to ensure that patients are aware of these developments to help them maximize the benefit they derive from their country's health‐care system.

Dopamine D2 Receptor Modulation of Human Response Inhibition and Error Awareness

Response inhibition, comprising action cancellation and action restraint, and error awareness are executive functions of considerable clinical relevance to neuropsychiatric disorders. Nevertheless, our understanding of their underlying catecholamine mechanisms, particularly regarding dopamine, is limited. Here, we used the dopamine D2 agonist cabergoline to study its ability to improve inhibitory control and modulate awareness of performance errors. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design with a single dose of cabergoline (1.25 mg) and placebo (dextrose) was employed in 25 healthy participants. They each performed the stop-signal task, a well-validated measure of action cancellation, and the Error Awareness Task, a go/no-go measure of action restraint and error awareness, under each drug condition. Cabergoline was able to selectively reduce stop-signal RT, compared with placebo, indicative of enhanced action cancellation (p < .05). This enhancement occurred without concomitant changes in overall response speed or RT variability and was not seen for errors of commission on the Error Awareness Task. Awareness of performance errors on the go/no-go task was, however, significantly improved by cabergoline compared with placebo (p < .05). Our results contribute to growing evidence for the dopaminergic control of distinct aspects of human executive ability, namely, action cancellation and error awareness. The findings may aid the development of new, or the repurposing of existing, pharmacotherapy that targets the cognitive dysfunction of psychiatric and neurological disorders. They also provide further evidence that specific cognitive paradigms have correspondingly specific neurochemical bases.

Improving the Validity of Self-Reported Sexual Behavior

Improving the Validity of Self-Reported Sexual Behavior

Assessments of reading comprehension: Different measures, different explanatory variables and achievement

This study investigates the reading achievement of 69 Portuguese fourth graders on national (NA) and international (PIRLS) assessments and its relation to reading skills in the following areas: phonological awareness, word recognition, fluency, accuracy, and types of oral reading errors. Data analysis was conducted using regression and t-tests for dependent samples. Results indicate that in the NA reading accuracy and vocabulary knowledge predict reading comprehension. In PIRLS, vocabulary knowledge and non-meaning changing errors explain the variance in reading scores. Performance in the NA was significantly higher than in PIRLS and, in this test, students scored significantly lower on questions that require interpreting and evaluating text than on literal questions. Differences in test design and implications for monitoring educational outcomes are discussed.

Síndromes de Deficiência Cerebral de Creatina

Creatine deficiency syndromes are a recently described group of diseases characterized by inborn errors of creatine metabolism. Clinical features include a spectrum of neurodevelopment disorders of diverse severity. They are characterized by low levels of cerebral creatine caused by different pathogenic mutations concerning the genes coding for creatine synthesis enzymes [arginine: glicyne amidinotransferase (AGAT, EC 2.1.4.1) and guanidinoacetate methyltansferase (GAMT, EC 2.1.1.2)], AGAT and GAMT, respectively, or its transporter (CT1 deficiency), SLC6A8. Enzymatic deficiencies are transmitted as autosomal recessive traits, whereas the transporter deficit is X-linked. To characterize the clinical and laboratorial presentation, diagnosis and treatment of cerebral creatine deficiency patients, followed in Hospital Pediátrico Carmona da Mota. The awareness of these inborn errors of metabolism as neurological disorders, namely of neurodevelopment, among the medical community is a secondary aim of the present work. Retrospective analysis of the clinical files of patients followed in our Hospital and diagnosed with cerebral creatine deficiency syndrome. Twelve patients belonging to seven different families were diagnosed with creatine deficiency syndromes. Five presented GAMT deficiency and seven CT1 deficiency. Present ages are 2 to 38 years old. The most common clinical presentations were: global development delay in seven patients (two with epilepsy), and speech delay in two patients. Only one patient had communication and social interaction dysfunction. In all, global development delay in the range of intellectual delay was identified. The pathognomonic pattern of cerebral creatine deficiency in the brain image was demonstrated in eight patients. Pathogenic mutations in GAMT or SLC6A8 genes were identified in all cases. The suspicion of cerebral creatine depletion must be considered in all children presenting unexplained global psychomotor development delay. Pre-symptomatic therapy has shown promising results, especially in GAMT deficiency patients. The high rate of asymptomatic carriers of GAMT mutations in our population makes this disorder eligible to neonatal screening in Portugal.

Self-organised localisation in indoor environments using the ALF framework

We present and discuss the autonomous localisation framework ALF, a self-organising indoor localisation environment. Location awareness is an important property for a growing number of applications. GPS is frequently used to provide this information in outdoor environments, but this is not applicable for indoor applications. There have been many approaches to solve the localisation problem for those GPS-denied scenarios. However, many of them are limited to certain hardware restrictions or do not provide robust self-localisation in dynamic real world application. ALF is a complete and modular framework based on minimal hardware requirements. The system is not only capable to deploying itself autonomously in unknown environments and offering position information among the participants, but it also supports accurate real-time localisation to customers. The concepts allows to remove or to add features e.g., the heading of nodes or certain real-time capabilities as the scenario demands or the even the used hardware changes. The awareness and handling of measurement errors, especially in non-line of sight NLOS cases, is an essential criterion for a real world application.

Situation Awareness, Cognitive Debriefing, and Strategies Toward Reducing Diagnostic Errors: Teaching Residents to Slow Down

Situation Awareness, Cognitive Debriefing, and Strategies Toward Reducing Diagnostic Errors: Teaching Residents to Slow Down

The Impact of Thyroid Nodule Size on the Risk of Malignancy and Accuracy of Fine-Needle Aspiration: A 10-Year Study from a Single Institution

False-negative rates for thyroid fine-needle aspiration (FNA) vary from 0.4% to 13%, but the effect of nodule size on the accuracy of thyroid FNA remains controversial. We hypothesized that large thyroid nodule size does not contribute to the risk of malignancy or the risk of a false-negative FNA. All thyroid FNAs performed at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center during September 2001-August 2011 were reviewed. A strict correlation between the biopsy site, location, and size of nodule on ultrasound (US) and pathology report was ensured. FNA results were classified as benign, atypical, follicular neoplasm/suspicious for follicular neoplasm (FN/SFN), suspicious for malignancy (SM), or malignant, and the pathology result was categorized as either benign or malignant. Nodules were analyzed by size: 0.5-0.9 cm (group A), 1.0-3.9 cm (group B), and ≥ 4 cm (group C). Incidental thyroid cancer was not included. Of 3013 patients undergoing FNA, 667 (22.1%) had surgery. Patients were excluded for nodules <0.5 cm, nondiagnostic FNA, or no preoperative US, leaving 540 patients with 695 nodules. Among patients referred for surgery, FNA results were benign in 417 nodules (60%), atypical in 22 (3.2%), FN/SFN in 122 (17.6%), SM in 77 (11.1%), and malignant in 57 (8.2%). Postoperative malignancy rates by FNA result were 7% if benign, 4.5% if atypical, 23% if FN/SFN, 33.8% if SM, and 78.9% if malignant. FNA accuracy was 60% in group A, 68.5% in group B, and 80.3% in group C (p=0.01). False-negative rates for FNA were 7.0% overall, 15.8% in group A, 6.3% in group B, and 7.1% in group C (p=0.25). Sensitivity and negative predictive value were highest in group B at 81.6% and 93.7%, respectively. The prevalence of malignancy was not different between groups. Our results show that the thyroid nodule size ≥ 4 cm increases neither the risk of false-negative FNA results, nor the overall risk of malignancy. We also show a tendency toward a higher false-negative rate in subcentimeter nodules. We conclude that a large nodule size should not prompt automatic referral for thyroidectomy. An increased awareness of potential sampling error in subcentimeter nodules is warranted.

How Does Early Feedback in an Online Programming Course Change Problem Solving?

How does early feedback change the programming problem solving in an online environment and help students choose correct approaches? This study was conducted in a sample of students learning programming in an online course entitled Introduction to C++ and OOP (Object Oriented Programming) using the ANGEL learning management system platform. My overall observations on teaching online introductory programming courses for 7 years (2005–2012) convinced me that online students try various ways to solve a problem. I found that some of the students' problem solving approaches generated the correct output but are not straightforward and thus difficult to understand. However, some of the solutions were innovative, challenging, and unique but gave an early impression that they were wrong (before a little investigation). The students apparently used trial-and-error in conjunction with their own logic to get to the correct output. The lack of communication and weak dissemination of information between instructor and students have caused a major problem in selecting a right problem solving approach. In this study, three problem sets are taken from the course text and are discussed in module 1 and module 2 of the term. The problems were to compute the salary of an employee with a given input such as number of hours worked and the hourly rate. In order to learn progressively, students were asked to program an employee's gross pay, net pay with a fixed tax rate, net pay with a variable tax rate, marital status, and overtime pay. The course communication was mainly through discussion boards between students and instructor, e-mails, instructor announcements, and the area where the assignment was to be submitted. In addition, students could call the instructor's cell phone to seek assistance in clarifying programming problems. The present study will show the effectiveness of early feedback in helping students to develop the right programs. Early and consistent feedback to students increases the awareness of potential errors and avoidance of having students choose a wrong path. However, there was an undesirable side effect in giving early feedback which resulted in limiting possible student-innovation. Early feedback seems to have inhibited the creativity of innovative students and thus to have skewed such students radically toward the classroom main stream.

From The Editors’ Desk: Cognitive Errors, and Why We May or May Not Be as Smart as We Think We Are (or Would Like To Be)

Erudite readers of JGIM may not naturally pick up David McRaney’s book, You Are Not So Smart, wrapped in a bright orange cover with an image of an ostrich standing with its head buried in the sand. Yet, McRaney’s accessible description of cognitive biases, heuristic errors and logical fallacies reinforces the idea that oftentimes our decision-making is influenced by thought patterns of which we are unaware. Some appellations of cognitive errors, such as “priming” or “normalcy bias,” may be more common in our lexicon than others, such as “The Dunning Kruger Effect,” which explains why we have difficulty accurately predicting our performance in any given situation. JGIM readers are often on the forefront of studying these cognitive errors and their consequences in health care, even when those studies are described through the lexicon and lens of health services or quality improvement. This month in JGIM, several articles explore how cognitive processing errors play out in health care and examine methods to overcome those errors. First, in their article, “The Body Gets Used to Them,” Brook-Howell and colleagues describe how patients think about antibiotic resistance. While this article has important implications for infection control, their findings fit with two common cognitive errors—“confabulation” and “embodied cognition.” Confabulation represents the false narratives we construct to explain our actions, history or beliefs. Embodied cognition expresses the idea that we believe that our opinions are based on objective evaluation; yet as we translate our physical world into words, we believe in those words and their associations. Ma and colleagues, in their article “Racial Disparities in Medical Expenditures within Body Weight Categories,” explore reasons why medical expenditures of black and white patients differ, including issues related to their health beliefs. Individuals with a “positive illusion bias” (or illusion of control, overconfidence bias or self-denial) view themselves in unrealistically positive terms. When this healthy adaptive defense is taken too far, individuals believe that they have a high degree of control over events and the future—more than population based data would indicate—negatively affecting their decisions. In their study, Ma et al. found that patients with positive health beliefs were less likely to utilize medical care, regardless of weight or ethnicity. A similar underlying bias may strike the reader when reading Krien and colleagues careful study of rates of hospital acquired infections, which have decreased since the CMS and other groups have ceased paying for the additional incurred costs of these infections. Many of these infections (especially line infections) are preventable, begging the question of why infection control measures are not more widely adopted. Perhaps the lack of action is due to competing clinical demands, inadequate monitoring systems, or a positive illusion bias on the part of providers and hospital administrators. Other cognitive errors contribute to disparities in health care. For instance, “ad hominem fallacies” occur when a person does not trust another individual, and therefore discounts his or her message, regardless of the underlying validity of the message. This fallacy appears in health care as distrust of physicians and their messages, when individuals are convinced that the physicians are profit driven or rationing care. When interpreting a clinical study or encountering a challenging patient, “attribution bias” results in incorrect conclusions about the individual or population. When attribution errors occur, we ascribe specific behaviors to the personal character of an individual or group, when in reality, the behaviors are situational (not dispositional). The lens with which we choose to examine a clinical question profoundly shapes the solution that we apply in addressing that question. As JGIM readers, developing greater awareness of common cognitive errors may allow investigators to develop targeted interventions to change the way individuals think, thus improving the chances of adopting better health behaviors and quality measures.

Individual differences in working memory capacity predict action monitoring and the error-related negativity.

Neuroscience suggests that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is responsible for conflict monitoring and the detection of errors in cognitive tasks, thereby contributing to the implementation of attentional control. Though individual differences in frontally mediated goal maintenance have clearly been shown to influence outward behavior in interference-rich contexts, it is unclear whether corresponding differences exist in neural responses that arise out of the ACC. To investigate this possibility, we conducted an electrophysiological study using a variant of the Simon Task, recording event-related potentials (ERPs) in healthy normal individuals with varying working memory capacity (high vs. low spans; a behavioral proxy for variability in goal maintenance). Primary analyses focused on the magnitude of the error-related negativity (ERN), a response-locked ERP component associated with the commission of errors thought to arise because of action monitoring in the ACC. Our results revealed that frontally mediated working memory capacity may alter error monitoring by the ACC, with high spans showing a greater ERN than low spans. These individual differences were also observed in the posterror positivity, a response-locked ERP component associated with updating cognitive strategies, suggesting greater awareness of errors with increased working memory capacity. These results are interpreted within 2-process models of attentional control, suggesting individuals with greater working memory capacity may better maintain task goals by more strongly biasing neural activity in frontal-executive networks.

The impact of introducing of clinical ward pharmacy services†

BackgroundThe Health System evolution has led to a transformation of roles and tasks traditionally assigned to the hospital pharmacist; he/she is now required to be an integral part of the...

Intensive care unit nurses' information needs and recommendations for integrated displays to improve nurses' situation awareness

Fatal errors can occur in intensive care units (ICUs). Researchers claim that information integration at the bedside may improve nurses' situation awareness (SA) of patients and decrease errors. However, it is unclear which information should be integrated and in what form. Our research uses the theory of SA to analyze the type of tasks, and their associated information gaps. We aimed to provide recommendations for integrated, consolidated information displays to improve nurses' SA. Systematic observations methods were used to follow 19 ICU nurses for 38 hours in 3 clinical practice settings. Storyboard methods and concept mapping helped to categorize the observed tasks, the associated information needs, and the information gaps of the most frequent tasks by SA level. Consensus and discussion of the research team was used to propose recommendations to improve information displays at the bedside based on information deficits. Nurses performed 46 different tasks at a rate of 23.4 tasks per hour. The information needed to perform the most common tasks was often inaccessible, difficult to see at a distance or located on multiple monitoring devices. Current devices at the ICU bedside do not adequately support a nurse's information-gathering activities. Medication management was the most frequent category of tasks. Information gaps were present at all levels of SA and across most of the tasks. Using a theoretical model to understand information gaps can aid in designing functional requirements. Integrated information that enhances nurses' Situation Awareness may decrease errors and improve patient safety in the future.

Short-term interventions on wards fail to reduce preanalytical errors: results of two prospective controlled trials

Preventing laboratory errors promotes patient safety and reduces the cost of unnecessary processing. The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of two short-term interventions at reducing errors in the preanalytical stage of laboratory testing. Error data were reviewed from inpatient wards at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI), Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) and St James' University Hospital (SJUH) for 22 weeks. Two separate interventions lasted for two weeks. The outcome measures were inadequate tube and form labelling, incorrect tube selection and insufficient sample volume. Posters targeting these errors were created and displayed on inpatient wards in SJUH (n = 48). BRI and LGI were control hospitals. Qualitative interviews were held with clinical staff to raise awareness of common errors, give advice and discuss error reduction (n = 37). Ten weeks later, screensavers warning against labelling errors were displayed (LGI and SJUH). Quantitative error data, routinely collected by the laboratory, were used for analysis. There was no change in error rate or type at the intervention site(s) compared with the control(s). There were 7058 reported errors across three sites, of which 6623 were errors targeted by the interventions. The overall error rate remained stable on all three sites (analysis of variance, P = 1.0). When interviewing clinical staff, 29% thought that equipment was the main contributing factor to errors while 23% struggled with tube selection. Despite enthusiasm on the part of the ward-based staff, both short-term interventions had no significant impact on preanalytical error rates. Most errors are due to human factors. These may be reduced with the introduction of an electronic ordering system.

Neurochemical Enhancement of Conscious Error Awareness

How the brain monitors ongoing behavior for performance errors is a central question of cognitive neuroscience. Diminished awareness of performance errors limits the extent to which humans engage in corrective behavior and has been linked to loss of insight in a number of psychiatric syndromes (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, drug addiction). These conditions share alterations in monoamine signaling that may influence the neural mechanisms underlying error processing, but our understanding of the neurochemical drivers of these processes is limited. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design of the influence of methylphenidate, atomoxetine, and citalopram on error awareness in 27 healthy participants. The error awareness task, a go/no-go response inhibition paradigm, was administered to assess the influence of monoaminergic agents on performance errors during fMRI data acquisition. A single dose of methylphenidate, but not atomoxetine or citalopram, significantly improved the ability of healthy volunteers to consciously detect performance errors. Furthermore, this behavioral effect was associated with a strengthening of activation differences in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and inferior parietal lobe during the methylphenidate condition for errors made with versus without awareness. Our results have implications for the understanding of the neurochemical underpinnings of performance monitoring and for the pharmacological treatment of a range of disparate clinical conditions that are marked by poor awareness of errors.

An electrophysiological signal that precisely tracks the emergence of error awareness

Recent electrophysiological research has sought to elucidate the neural mechanisms necessary for the conscious awareness of action errors. Much of this work has focused on the error positivity (Pe), a neural signal that is specifically elicited by errors that have been consciously perceived. While awareness appears to be an essential prerequisite for eliciting the Pe, the precise functional role of this component has not been identified. Twenty-nine participants performed a novel variant of the Go/No-go Error Awareness Task (EAT) in which awareness of commission errors was indicated via a separate speeded manual response. Independent component analysis (ICA) was used to isolate the Pe from other stimulus- and response-evoked signals. Single-trial analysis revealed that Pe peak latency was highly correlated with the latency at which awareness was indicated. Furthermore, the Pe was more closely related to the timing of awareness than it was to the initial erroneous response. This finding was confirmed in a separate study which derived IC weights from a control condition in which no indication of awareness was required, thus ruling out motor confounds. A receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the Pe could reliably predict whether an error would be consciously perceived up to 400 ms before the average awareness response. Finally, Pe latency and amplitude were found to be significantly correlated with overall error awareness levels between subjects. Our data show for the first time that the temporal dynamics of the Pe trace the emergence of error awareness. These findings have important implications for interpreting the results of clinical EEG studies of error processing.

Ensuring quality cancer care

Responding to growing concerns regarding the safety, quality, and efficacy of cancer care in the United States, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences commissioned a comprehensive review of cancer care delivery in the US health care system in the late 1990s. The National Cancer Policy Board (NCPB), a 20-member board with broad representation, performed this review. In its review, the NCPB focused on the state of cancer care delivery at that time, its shortcomings, and ways to measure and improve the quality of cancer care. The NCPB described an ideal cancer care system in which patients would have equitable access to coordinated, guideline-based care and novel therapies throughout the course of their disease. In 1999, the IOM published the results of this review in its influential report, Ensuring Quality Cancer Care. The report outlined 10 recommendations, which, when implemented, would: 1) improve the quality of cancer care, 2) increase the current understanding of quality cancer care, and 3) reduce or eliminate access barriers to quality cancer care. Despite the fervor generated by this report, there are lingering doubts regarding the safety and quality of cancer care in the United States today. Increased awareness of medical errors and barriers to quality care, coupled with escalating health care costs, has prompted national efforts to reform the health care system. These efforts by health care providers and policymakers should bridge the gap between the ideal state described in Ensuring Quality Cancer Care and the current state of cancer care in the United States.

Visuomotor adaptation is impaired in patients with unilateral neglect

Patients with unilateral neglect tend to ignore sensory information from their contralesional hemispace. Many symptoms of neglect can be reduced by exposing patients to rightward-shifting prism goggles. It was noted that the effects on neglect symptoms last for at least two hours. This seems surprising in light of the fact that the after-effect of prism adaptation in healthy subjects lasts only for a few trials. To account for this discrepancy Michel et al. (2003) referred to anecdotal observations which suggested that neglect patients show little awareness of prism-induced spatial errors. They argued that this lack of awareness might interfere with more conscious attempts to compensate for the prism goggles (called strategic control) and thereby enhance the effects of more implicit corrective mechanisms (called spatial realignment) leading to more pronounced and longer-lasting after-effects. We examined this hypothesis in a group of neglect patients, patients with right-hemispheric lesions but no neglect and a group of healthy age-matched controls. Our findings confirm that strategic control mechanisms are impaired in neglect patients. However, their after-effects seem neither reduced nor pathologically increased, thereby suggesting that the two mechanisms of prism adaptation, namely strategic control and spatial realignment are quite independent of each other. Furthermore we found that these deficits are quite specific for neglect since other patients with right-hemisphere lesions but no neglect are not impaired in this task. We discuss the implications of our findings for our understanding of visual neglect, prism adaptation and the perception and action model.

What Rules of Thumb Do Clinicians Use to Decide Whether to Antagonize Nondepolarizing Neuromuscular Blocking Drugs?

In anesthesia practice, inadequate antagonism of neuromuscular blocking drugs (NMBD) may lead to frequent prevalence of residual neuromuscular block that is associated with morbidity and death. In this study we analyzed the clinical decision on antagonizing NMBD to generate hypotheses about barriers to the introduction of experts' recommendations into clinical practice. Sequential surveys were conducted among 108 clinical anesthesiologists to elicit the rules of thumb (heuristics) that support their decisions and provide a measurement of the confidence the clinicians have in their own decisions in comparison with their peers' decisions. The 2 most frequently used heuristics for administering reversal were "the interval since the last NMBD dose was short" and "the breathing pattern is inadequate," chosen by 73% and 71% of the clinicians, respectively. Clinicians considered that the prevalence of clinically significant residual block is higher in their colleagues' practices than in their own practice (60% vs 16%, odds ratio=7.8, 95% confidence interval, 3.8 to 16.2, P=0.0001). The clinicians were less likely to use antagonists if >60 minutes had elapsed after a single dose of atracurium (0.5 mg/kg) (31%) in comparison with after rocuronium 0.6 mg/kg (53%) (P=0.0035). In our institution, the clinical decision to antagonize NMBD is mainly based on the pharmacological forecast and a qualitative judgment of the adequacy of the breathing pattern. Clinicians judge themselves as better skilled at avoiding residual block than they do their colleagues, making them overconfident in their capacity to estimate the duration of action of intermediate-acting NMBD. Awareness of these systematic errors related to clinical intuition may facilitate the adoption of experts' recommendations into clinical practice.

On the accuracy of framing-rate measurements in ultra-high speed rotating mirror cameras

Rotating mirror systems based on the Miller Principle are a mainstay modality for ultra-high speed imaging within the range 1-25 million frames per second. Importantly, the true temporal accuracy of observations recorded in such cameras is sensitive to the framing rate that the system directly associates with each individual data acquisition. The purpose for the present investigation was to examine the validity of such system-reported frame rates in a widely used commercial system (a Cordin 550-62 model) by independently measuring the framing rate at the instant of triggering. Here, we found a small but significant difference between such measurements: the average discrepancy (over the entire spectrum of frame rates used) was found to be 0.66 ± 0.48%, with a maximum difference of 2.33%. The principal reason for this discrepancy was traced to non-optimized sampling of the mirror rotation rate within the system protocol. This paper thus serves three purposes: (i) we highlight a straightforward diagnostic approach to facilitate scrutiny of rotating-mirror system integrity; (ii) we raise awareness of the intrinsic errors associated with data previously acquired with this particular system and model; and (iii), we recommend that future control routines address the sampling issue by implementing real-time measurement at the instant of triggering.