Articles Tagged With: Diagnostics
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Does a Clinical Decision Aid Constitute the Legal Standard of Care?
Each emergency physician should undertake the appropriate medical approach to evaluating a patient, regardless of any recommended course of action. The medical record should support using the recommended path or justify another course of action.
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Malpractice Lawsuits Allege ED Missed Intracranial Aneurysms
Failure to image patients is a relatively frequent cause of litigation, but it should be seen in context. It is not so much incorrect interpretations of imaging studies; rather, failure to consider the possibility of an aneurysm, resulting in an inadequate workup, is a more common allegation.
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Give Actionable Incidental Findings Proper Attention
New recommendations help health systems implement processes that will preserve patient safety. These tips aim to make it easy for providers to do right by their patients when clinicians identify actionable incidental findings.
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Stroke and a Wide QRS
The ECG in the figure is from an older man who presented with an acute stroke. He denied chest pain. Why is there QRS widening? What might be the clinical implications?
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Unexpected Low Voltage on an ECG
A registry study of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients and elite athletes in Italy revealed low voltage on ECG is not uncommon in HCM and may be a marker for more left ventricular scarring on cardiac imaging — and a poor prognosis.
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How to Diagnose ATTR Cardiac Amyloidosis
A retrospective study of patients with confirmed cardiac amyloidosis showed negative light chain biomarkers and a typical pattern of cardiac amyloid on cardiac MRI was highly specific for the diagnosis of the transthyretin subtype and may obviate the need for further testing before starting treatment.
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In Med/Mal Cases for Missed Central Nervous Pathology, Dizziness Is Factor
After reviewing dozens of malpractice claims, researchers learned patients who reported dizziness often were discharged home or admitted without anyone diagnosing central nervous system pathology. Patients presented to an ED and were diagnosed with migraine or other conditions. The correct diagnoses only became clear later. The subsequent lawsuits revolved around the first emergency physician missing the diagnosis at the initial visit.
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Tactics to Improve Diagnostic Performance When Caring for Older Adults
Experts in diagnostics and elder care recently discussed the unique challenges of coming to a correct diagnosis for older patients and how healthcare providers can improve their performance.
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Patients with Nonspecific, Atypical Symptoms Could Be Misdiagnosed
An emergency medicine professor explains how providers can reduce risks for ED patients who present with unusual symptoms.
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Harsh Criticism for New Report on ED Diagnostic Errors
New research that might have injected renewed vigor into improving diagnostic performance in the ED has instead prompted much uproar. In the emergency medicine community, that discussion has been overshadowed by biting criticism about the data and the methodologies investigators used to reach their conclusions — and what some are calling unfair blame placed at the foot of emergency providers.