Why Do ER Doctors Miss Diagnoses?

Some of our favorite television shows are focused on heroic action in hospital emergency rooms, but the reality of ER care is often far more chaotic, careless, and less inspiring. Emergency rooms are a common setting for medical malpractice, especially for preventable errors such as misdiagnosis, missed diagnoses, or delayed diagnosis.

An ER doctor’s job is to provide effective treatment for emergency medical conditions and injuries; however, a misdiagnosis can result in the patient receiving the wrong treatment, sometimes causing serious harm, worsened medical outcome, or wrongful death.

What Causes Misdiagnoses or Missed Diagnoses in Chicago Emergency Rooms?

The emergency room is where we go when an urgent medical condition or injury requires immediate care. Unfortunately, sometimes ER doctors overlook a serious medical condition and either fail to treat the patient or erroneously treat the patient for a condition they don’t have, while allowing their true medical condition to remain untreated. The most common causes of missed diagnosis or missed diagnoses in emergency rooms include the following:

• Inadequate time spent with the patient
• Atypical symptom presentation
• Failure to perform a complete examination
• Failure to obtain a complete patient history
• Failure to order the appropriate diagnostic tests
• Misinterpreting test results
• Anchoring bias or confirmation bias, which occurs when a doctor has a preconceived idea of a patient’s diagnosis and then overlooks or ignores conflicting evidence, or seeks only evidence confirming their initial impression
• Inadequate handoffs to another provider
• Failure to refer to a specialist
• Prematurely closing the case
• Incomplete patient records
• Imaging test failures or lab errors

According to research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), an estimated 7.4 million emergency room visits end in a misdiagnosis or a missed diagnosis each year. That’s about 1,400 diagnostic errors per year in each emergency room in the U.S.

What Conditions Are Most Often Misdiagnosed in Emergency Rooms In Chicago and Elsewhere?

One medical research study indicates that ER errors occur more often than all other types of medical malpractice combined. In the best-case scenario for ER misdiagnosis, the patient suffers only a few extra days of illness, for example, when a doctor misses a diagnosis of bronchitis, delaying appropriate treatment until a second ER visit. Unfortunately, some of the most life-threatening conditions are also among the most commonly misdiagnosed or overlooked, including the following:

• Stroke
• Heart attack
• Infection
• Sepsis
• Aortic aneurysm
• Venous thromboembolism (blood clots)
• Spinal cord compression injury
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI)

High patient volumes, time constraints, understaffing, and pressure to keep up a fast pace all contribute to the high number of emergency room diagnostic errors.

Who Is Liable When an ER Doctor Misses a Diagnosis?

If a missed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, or delayed diagnosis causes serious harm, a worsened medical outcome, or wrongful death, the patient or their surviving family member has the right to seek compensation for their losses. Determining the correct liable party often requires an investigation. Many hospitals insulate themselves against direct liability for ER errors by using independent contractors as ER doctors. This shifts liability to the individual doctor. If the ER doctor is a hospital employee, the hospital itself may be held liable for damages, such as additional medical expenses, lost earnings, and compensation for pain and suffering.

An experienced Chicago medical malpractice lawyer investigates the malpractice, documents evidence of liability, and consults with medical experts to carefully calculate damages to maximize their client’s financial recovery.