Evaluation of missed findings in chest, pelvic and vertebral x-ray in the emergency department in trauma patients

Abstract

The study of medical errors is an attempt to prevent them. Identifying and reducing diagnostic errors provides a measure of health care system efficiency, as it reduces mortality, morbidity, length of hospital stay, and additional health care costs. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating the findings of simple chest, pelvis and whole vertebrae missed in emergency trauma patients of Tabriz Imam Reza Hospital. Methods: In this study, the graphs of multiple trauma patients in the emergency shifts of 15 emergency medicine doctors in the emergency department of Imam Reza Hospital, which were interpreted by the relevant assistant and specialist in that shift, were examined and compared with the interpretation of one of the radiology professors. The shift examined by emergency department professors was randomly selected and all the graphs of multiple trauma patients interpreted in that shift were examined. The collected data include the age and gender of the emergency medicine doctor, the age and gender of the resident, the history of relevant expertise, the age and gender of the patient, the type of trauma of the patient, the requested graphs, the diagnosis of emergency medicine, the radiologist's radiology report. Results: Out of 232 cases of patients examined in this study, only 4 cases were missed, which indicates a missed rate and a diagnostic error of 1.72% in the examination of simple x-ray findings in emergency trauma patients of Imam Reza Hospital in this study. These four cases included femoral neck fracture (pelvic x-ray), lumbar vertebra 1 fracture (lumbar vertebra x-ray), right fibula fracture and left distal femur fracture (lower extremity x-ray). The highest missed rate occurred in the lumbar spine graphs and one out of 16 cases was missed (6.25%).