Recent Study Estimates that 5% of Patients in Outpatient Settings Are Misdiagnosed, Offering Pathologists an Opportunity to Provide More Consultations to Doctors

This spring, researchers at the VA Hospital in Houston published a study revealing that one in 20 patients in outpatient settings are misdiagnosed Publication of new peer-reviewed clinical studies indicates that, within the United States, more than 5% of outpatients—or 12 million people—are misdiagnosed annually. Few pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists would dispute this number because every day they see the best and the worst of how physicians use medical laboratory tests. These...

Study Shows Too Many Electronic Alerts Cause 30% of Primary Care Physicians to Overlook Essential Clinical Laboratory Test Results

Missed results in EHRs were related to information overload, electronic handoffs from one provider to another, and perceptions of poor usability of the EHR Physicians often overlook important clinical laboratory test results when they get too many alerts in a day. This was one of several findings from a study designed to see how physicians responded to alerts delivered through an electronic health record system (EHR). These findings will not surprise most pathologists and medical laboratory...
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