Missed Injuries in Military Patients with Major Trauma: Original Study

Abstract

Missed injuries could usually be encountered in the most seriously injured patients, particularly in those with altered levels of consciousness. Missed injuries were mostly avoidable and most were the result of inadequate clinical examination.

Predictors of missed injuries in hospitalized trauma patients in the emergency department

“…Another reason might be that they did not take possession of the trauma victim; they even sometimes think the EMR consulted them unnecessarily, and their prejudice is reflected in their notes. Previous studies have shown that most missed diagnoses were located in the extremities and were musculoskeletal injuries [4,8,11,13]. Missed diagnoses relating to the extremities and the musculoskeletal system were also significantly higher in number in our study (Table 3).…”

“…The objective of this study was to explore a problem that has not been studied previously in a civil hospital in Turkey. Our rate of missed diagnosis (13.3%) was acceptable compared with rates reported in other studies (4.8-22%) performed in various countries [4,8,11,13]. Notwithstanding, it is clearly evident that we have a very high rate of missed injury in this population.…”

“…However, many injuries can still entirely escape detection at the hospital [11]. This prospectively collected data, that avoided using a subgroup but rather included all hospitalized trauma patients presenting to the ED, has provided us with a more correct opinion for the extent and importance of the problem, compared with retrospective studies [4,8,11,12]. The objective of this study was to explore a problem that has not been studied previously in a civil hospital in Turkey.…”

“…The most common radiological errors were ''delay in reporting'', ''misinterpretation by the clinician'', and ''failure to X-ray''. Many relevant studies have reported that ''misinterpretation by the clinician or the radiologist'' was the dominant radiological error [4,11,21,22]. Incomplete imaging or low-quality imaging also had a considerable role in missed diagnoses [18].…”

“…A missed injury may attract attention as the most memorable event in a patient's clinical course, clouding the brave efforts of the trauma team [4]. To reduce errors, hospitals need effective means of identifying errors and error-associated deaths, which have been found to be 2.7-6.5% [1,5].…”