Report: Correlation between missing data, medical errors

A JAMAstudy showed that clinical information wasn't complete in 13.6% of patient visits studied.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Feb. 21, 2005.

One result of the health care system using more specialists to take care of sicker patients is that physicians are often missing important pieces of clinical information, and there is a concern that this could lead to medical errors, delays in treatment or duplication of services.

According to a report published in the Feb. 2 Journal of the American Medical Association, clinical information such as laboratory and radiology results, letters and medical history was missing during 13.6% of 1,614 patient visits analyzed by researchers at 32 Colorado primary care clinics.

The study, funded by the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, also found that, in 44% of these cases, doctors felt that the missing information had the potential to adversely affect a patient's well-being.

"Patients are getting a lot of care at a lot of places," said the study's lead author, Peter C. Smith, MD, an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. "Missing information is a symptom of a sick health care system -- and it shows it really isn't a system. It's a bunch of independently acting units."

Dr. Smith said physicians with "full" electronic medical record systems were less likely to report episodes of missing information. But he noted that, within a few of the same practices, some doctors reported having only partial systems and reported more cases of missing data.