IHQSE faculty member, Dr. Katie Raffel, along with Dr. Katie Brooks and the UPSIDE research team, recently published findings from a multicenter retrospective cohort study evaluating the association between use of stigmatizing language and diagnostic error. The prevalence of stigmatizing language was higher among patients with diagnostic errors than those without. Use of this language was associated with delays in care at presentation and errors in communication with patients and caregivers. This raises the question of whether stigmatizing language may be indicative of clinician biases that interfere with data gathering, communication, and clinical reasoning.

Diagnostic errors (DE) are a critical but understudied cause of preventable patient harm. While much work has focused on examining the incidence and factors contributing to DEs in ambulatory and emergency room settings, fewer studies have examined the incidence of DEs in hospitals or how they contribute to adverse events during the hospital encounter. IHQSE Faculty, Dr. Katie Raffel, along with other experts on diagnostic error, led an AHRQ-funded study at 31 US hospitals aimed at defining the prevalence and underlying causes of DEs in patients who die in the hospital or are transferred to the ICU after the first 48 hours.

Physical therapy (PT) in inpatient settings is a limited and valuable resource. Inappropriate PT consultation is costly and can lead to delays in care and discharge planning. A team of IHQSE alumni, including faculty members, Dr. Emily Gottenborg and Dr. Moksha Patel, dug into the root causes of unnecessary PT consultations and deployed an intervention that reduced the rate of inappropriate PT consults to less than 10%.

Diagnostic error is common, morbid, and mortal. IHQSE faculty member, Dr. Katie Raffel, along with Dr. Andrew Auerbach and other experts on diagnostic error, recently published findings from a multicenter retrospective cohort study in which 2500 hospitalized adults who experienced ICU escalation or death were evaluated for diagnostic error. This study adds to a body of literature highlighting the importance of diagnostic safety within hospital medicine.