Achieving Diagnostic Excellence: Patients as Research Partners

Description: Although diagnostic errors are often due to unintended and avoidable communication failures, error reduction frequently focuses on the practitioner’s perspective with patients relegated to limited involvement. This webinar will share how the Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) partnered with Patient Advisors to develop interventions that address diagnostic errors.

Presenters:

• Kerry Litman, MD, CPPS
• Susie Becken, Patient Advisor
• David  Breitstein , Patient Advisor
• Maricruz Arteaga Garavito, Consultant

Learning objectives:

• Demonstrate the value of partnering with patients to develop systems to achieve diagnostic excellence.
• Examine collaboration strategies between healthcare organizations and patient partners to develop interventions that address diagnostic errors.
• Explain the importance of patient collaboration in the development of patient engagement guides – from design of the guide to testing its utility.

Share experience of patient participation in the development of an educational video to increase clinician awareness of diagnostic errors and how to reduce them.

The intended audience for this series is Patient and families, Patient engagement leadership, CMOs, Quality leaders and multidisciplinary care teams leaders.    This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.

Background

The Northwest Safety and Quality Partnership along with the Chief Medical Officers Collaborative have both underscored the priority of diagnostic excellence as a quality measure and one of the top 5 quality measures for focus.    The effects of diagnostic errors are currently estimated to affect upwards of 12 million Americans each year, causing more harm to patients than all other hospital errors combined. These errors also have a marked impact on health care providers; the emotional effects of diagnostic error can be long-lasting and harmful. Patients identify the ramifications of diagnostic errors as emotional distress, prolonged illness and medical complications, impairment in activities of daily living, and decreased confidence in the health care system.  Given the prevalence and impacts of diagnostic errors, health care leaders must address them as part of their quality improvement and patient safety programs.