Across the nation, businesses are pressured to do more with less time and resources, forcing them to cut corners wherever they can. Unfortunately, the medical industry is not immune to such pressures. According to a new study, this is having an adverse effect on patient care.
The study, recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that many primary care doctors don’t have enough time to devote to their patients. Because of this, the likelihood of a misdiagnosis is increased.
For the study, researchers analyzed the medical records of 212,165 office visits to 69 physicians and other health care professionals over a year at a Veterans Affairs primary care facility and four other private clinics. Researchers zeroed in on office visits that were later followed by hospitalizations, visits to emergency rooms or urgent care facilities within two weeks.
Within this group, the researchers focused their efforts on determining if the primary care medical professionals involved could have successfully diagnosed the condition, which subsequently sent the patient to the hospital or emergency room, based on the information that they had at the initial office visit.
When misdiagnoses occurred at the initial primary care visit, the study found that the majority of them were caused by one or more factors:
- Failure to order or follow up on diagnostic tests
- Errors in taking or understanding patients’ medical histories
- Errors in the physical examination of the patient
- Failure to consult with or refer to an expert or specialist
- Failure to read or understand patients’ medical history or records
- Misinterpretation of a diagnostic test
- Failure to realize the seriousness of the condition
According to the chief author of the study Dr. Hardeep Singh, the reason for the misdiagnoses are because physicians are seeing more and more patients and are also devoting more of their time to administrative work. The time constraints caused by this result in shorter and less focused office visits, where physicians are forced to base their diagnoses on the patient’s appearance and his or her main complaint.
In addition, since physicians do not have the time to talk to their patients as much as they used to, it is causing their techniques of recording accurate patient histories and performing thorough examinations to become rusty.
Consult An attorney
Although primary care physicians work under time constraints, it does not excuse their duty under the law to provide competent medical care. Failure to meet this duty constitutes medical malpractice, entitling the victim to recover compensation.
If you have suffered because of a physician’s failure to diagnose a medical condition, contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney to learn about your right to compensation.
