Objective: To determine the frequency and etiology of diagnostic errors during the first 7 days of admission for inborn neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients.
Study design: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 600 consecutive inborn admissions. A physician used the "Safer Dx NICU Instrument" to review the electronic health record for the first 7 days of admission, and categorized cases as "yes," "unclear," or "no" for diagnostic error. A secondary reviewer evaluated all "yes" charts plus a random sample of charts in the other categories. Subsequently, all secondary reviewers reviewed records with discordance between primary and secondary review to arrive at consensus.
Results: We identified 37 diagnostic errors (6.2% of study patients) with "substantial agreement" between reviewers (κ = 0.66). The most common diagnostic process breakdown was missed maternal history (51%).
Conclusion: The frequency of diagnostic error in inborn NICU patients during the first 7 days of admission is 6.2%.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.