The Northwest Safety and Quality Partnership continues the focus in April on our priority quality measure of diagnostic excellence as we offer part two-of-three of our Diagnostic Errors webinar series provided by Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Permanente Director of Complete Care Dr. Tracy Imley, MD, will deliver a presentation on the SureNet program from 12-1 p.m., April 29, 2021.
Two main factors have been found to contribute to diagnostic errors: cognitive errors and systems errors. As a result of this, Southern California Permanente Medical Group’s (SCPMG) physicians designed a safety net in their electronic medical record to reduce delayed or missed follow ups on abnormal lab tests. This safety net is known as SureNet.
As designed, this program scans the record to identify potential patient safety issues ranging from drug-disease interaction to early detection of cancer. Initially, Kaiser Permanente providers developed an alert to improve diagnosis of chronic kidney disease, which they identified by taking two elevated blood creatinine levels three months apart. If no repeat test appeared in the record within 90 days of the first, SureNet would alert both the provider and patient to continue with a follow-up test. According to Kaiser Permanente, “Over a 4-year period, SureNet identified 12,396 people in need of a repeat test, and 30 percent of them had confirmed chronic kidney disease.” Click here to register or learn more.
This webinar series is free of charge. If you were unable to attend the first webinar in the series, don’t worry! You can gain access to the recording by registering for free online. Any questions can be directed to Trish Anderson at trisha@wsha.org or Amy Anderson at amya@wsha.org.
