The Emergency Medicine Collaborative (EMC) was formed in 2016 with the goal of developing best practice guidelines to direct complex practice issues. The Collaborative is comprised of experts in law, risk management and patient safety, claims management, medicine, nursing, and employee safety and seeks to address challenges encountered in emergency departments for which there is no clear or definitive guidance provided by local and national patient safety organizations, or professional colleges and associations. Collaborative members represent facilities of all sizes and demographics to ensure that its ED Toolkits are applicable to any BETA member facility.
Diagnostic Error Project
Diagnosis is the biggest problem in patient safety with the U.S. National Academy of Medicine estimating that diagnostic errors impact more than 12 million Americans every year and result in 40,000 to 80,000 deaths. The MPL Association reports that diagnostic errors are the leading category of paid malpractice claims for U.S. hospitals with an estimated cumulative cost in the $50 - $100 billion range.
The EMC is working on a project to address cognitive processes, clinical thinking and decision making (and the influences upon thinking and reasoning) to help providers recognize potential biases or cognitive shortcuts that could affect their clinical diagnoses. Influences upon thinking and reasoning include:
- Biases
- Error-producing conditions
- Knowledge deficits
- Cognitive load/throughput pressure
- Fatigue
- Affective state
The goal of the project is to develop a set of strategies and interventions that helps our members' providers "think about their thinking" and optimize cognitive performance to help reduce diagnostic error in healthcare.
Email Nicole Amidon, Manager, Risk Management and Patient Safety - Emergency Medicine at nicole.amidon@betahg.com or call (818) 242-0123 for guidance or more information regarding the Emergency Medicine Collaborative.