Impact of a Web-based diagnosis reminder system on errors of diagnosis.

A large number of medical errors can be attributed to errors in diagnosis. A diagnosis reminder system such as Isabel may lessen the risk of diagnostic error by providing a checklist of possible diagnoses. For this project, resident physicians used Isabel to work through a set of six simulated patient cases. The system had a positive effect on the mean diagnostic quality score and the number of clinically important diagnoses included in the differential.