A national study of the causes, consequences and amelioration of adverse events in the use of MRI, CT, and conventional radiography in Norway.

BACKGROUND: Rapid technological developments, increased complexity, and increased demand have made patient safety a challenge in radiology. PURPOSE: To uncover the causes and consequences behind patient injury compensation claims in the use of MRI, CT, and conventional X-ray examinations, and to determine the system factors that need to be focused on in order to prevent these events. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study uses data acquired from The Norwegian System of Patient Injury Compensation. A total of 240 cases from 2012-2016 were included. RESULTS: According to our study, the main factors contributing to patient injury compensation claims in radiology were false-negative findings (48.7%), misinterpretation (13.1%), and "satisfaction of search" (12%). Another source of error was routines (8.7%), mainly where the patient should have been (further) examined using another modality. Other causes were related to communication (7.6%), procedures (2.9%), technical factors (2.5%), organizational and management factors (1.5%), competence (0.7%), location of the lesion (0.7%), patient factors (0.7%), false-positive findings (0.4%), and work environment (0.4%). These events led to delayed diagnosis and/or treatment in the range of 0-3650 days. CONCLUSION: Errors of perception (false negative and "satisfaction of search") and cognitive errors (misinterpretation) were the main reasons behind patient injury compensation claims in radiology. We suggest that a combination of double-reading, specialization, increased collaboration between professionals, as well as a reduction of unnecessary examinations should be considered to reduce adverse events in radiology.

Approved claims for compensation from gynecological patients in Norway-What characterizes the cases? A 14-year nationwide study.

INTRODUCTION: The Norwegian System of Patient Injury Compensation (NPE) evaluates all patient-reported claims in Norway. Our aim was to study the cases from gynecological patients approved by NPE in order to identify the main reasons for the injuries, the consequences of the treatment failure for the women, and the time course when the treatment failure occurred. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective, descriptive study of approved gynecological compensation claims during a 14-year period, based on patient files from NPE. RESULTS: In all, 1454 women claimed compensation for injury related to gynecological treatment in Norway from 2000 to 2013. Compensation was approved for 438 (30.1%) women. Eleven women declined participation in the study and 16 cases were excluded, leaving 411 cases for further analyses. Consent to participate was given by 211 (51.3%) women, who gave full access to all their NPE files. Anonymized resumes and expert statements were used for the 138 (33.6%) women who did not respond and the 62 (15.1%) women who were deceased. Guidelines or good clinical practice were not followed in 40.5% of the cases. The most common reasons for injury were surgical complications (67.6%), delayed (22.4%) and incorrect (17.0%) diagnoses, and failure of communication (11.7%). The main consequences of injuries were need for extensive treatment (64.2%), permanent injury (55.2%) and impaired physical ability (41.9%). Worsening of cancer prognosis occurred in 58 women (14.1%) and death due to treatment failure in 29 (7.1%) women. Most failures occurred during the treatment period (75.2%). CONCLUSIONS: We found that the main reason for injuries in gynecological patients was non-adherence to guidelines or good clinical practice. Surgery-related injuries were most common. Increased focus on adherence to guidelines and surgical skills might improve patient safety for gynecological patients in Norway.