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PROFESSIONAL ISSUESUnderlying data questioned: Error study focuses on primary careThe AAFP's quality improvement chief calls for more decision-support technology to lower errors in diagnosis.By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. May 3, 2004. Recent evidence of the difficulty primary care physicians face in managing chronic conditions, keeping up with rapid medical advances and seeing more patients in less time has come from an unlikely source: a database of malpractice claims. Using data from 15 years of malpractice claims, researchers at the Robert Graham Center in Washington, D.C., examined how the consequences of "seemingly trivial mistakes" can be multiplied by the high-volume and complex nature of today's practice environment and result in patient harm or even death. Because of the source of the information, however, some patient-safety experts suggest that the statistics be taken with a grain of salt. Most previous medical-error studies have focused on hospital care, but since Americans annually make 820 million doctors' office visits compared with 38 million trips to the hospital, some experts feel a shift in focus is overdue. "The main value of the study is that it shows that the outpatient setting can be studied and errors occur there that can be categorized, and categorization helps us find systematic solutions," said American Academy of Family Physicians Director of Quality Improvement Bruce Bagley, MD. Robert Gillette, MD, a "semi-retired" family physician and instructor at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, agreed. "The apparent rising incidence of true medical errors has many causes, but one of the most important is the constantly escalating complexity of medical science," he said. "The more balls one is expected to keep in the air at one time, the greater the probability that one of them will fall." [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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