Thursday, November 2, 2017

Failure to Diagnose


In the wrongful death settlement with DuPage Medical Group, Alexian Brothers and Ochoa family,(Personal Injury Lawyers at Cogan & Power . . .) the plaintiff attorneys recovered more than $3 million dollars in “Failure to Diagnose Case” of a patient who died of a complicated headache. The article states that the patient of their clinic with chronic headaches was seen multiple times with no tests being performed.

This showcases a familiar response to a patient returning for the same complaint multiple times. The providers were suffering from “anchor bias” – relying on the first piece of information offered when making subsequent judgments.

These errors could be avoided by using a risk-factor driven electronic health record to review old records and reminded when important risk factors are ignored.  In the case, it was not differentiating between a benign headache and a life-threatening one by not asking the right questions.

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