Conferences
14 September 2011, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Diagnostic Error: understanding it and reducing it
A joint event between the Scottish Clinical Skills Network, the Scottish Intensive Care Society, and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, with support from Healthcare Improvement Scotland, aims to help us understand and reduce diagnostic error in the UK.
Diagnosis is a fundamental component of clinical medicine - good diagnosticians are revered by their peers and treasured by their patients. Yet diagnostic error is the second most common preventable error made by doctors, with major implications for patient safety and quality of care. Many factors result in diagnostic error. Some, such as lack of knowledge, are easily identifiable and correctable. Others are more difficult to recognise and rectify. In particular the thought processes, both conscious and unconscious, leading to the formulation of a diagnosis, are fraught with difficulty and prone to error. Cognitive errors are frequent and compounded by affective biases.
This symposium will explore the ways doctors think, and provide a framework to understand how these processes may lead to diagnostic error and patient harm. World leading figures in the field will explain the concepts, and provide advice on how to improve individual diagnostic performance as well as strategies to improve patient safety in healthcare systems. The symposium will close with a panel discussion.http://events.rcpe.ac.uk/events/150/diagnostic-error-understanding-it-and-re
