Jun 21, 2019
Contributor: Peter Bakes, MD
Educational Pearls:
- While there are many different types of medical error, one of the most common errors in emergency medicine is failure to diagnose
- Systematic error in thinking that negatively affects judgement
- Medical errors are often driven by cognitive biases, which include anchoring, attribution, and availability
- Anchoring bias occurs when early information leads to premature closure on a single diagnosis. There is subsequent failure to consider alternative diagnoses, even in the face of conflicting new data and test results.
- Attribution bias occurs when assumptions about personal and medical characteristics are made about a specific group of people.
- Availability bias occurs when recent experiences drive providers to over or under consider diagnoses.
References
Croskerry P. Cognitive forcing strategies in clinical decisionmaking. Ann Emerg Med. 2003 Jan;41(1):110-20. doi: 10.1067/mem.2003.22. PubMed PMID: 12514691.
Redelmeier DA. Improving patient care. The cognitive psychology of missed diagnoses. Ann Intern Med. 2005 Jan 18;142(2):115-20. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-142-2-200501180-00010. PubMed PMID: 15657159.
https://www.nuemblog.com/blog/cognitive-bias
Summarized by Will Dewispelaere, MS4 | Edited by Erik Verzemnieks, MD