title: An analysis of the most common types of hand injury mistakes and their cost in the acute setting.
abstract: This study aimed to explore the most common hand injury errors occurring in Emergency Departments in England. A Freedom of Information request was made to the NHS Litigation Authority for claims data related to hand injuries in English Emergency Departments from 2004 to 2014. All successful hand injury claims against an individual DGH ED were also analysed. Two hundred and eighteen successful claims were made, costing a total of £6,273,688.22. Diagnosis error was the most common successful claim (97). Four successful claims were brought against the Emergency Department. Causes of error included the use of inappropriate views and failure to correlate imaging with clinical findings. Hand injury diagnostic error has been the most common cause of successful litigious claims against Emergency Departments over the past 10 years. This paper demonstrates that fracture recognition and clinical diagnosis of hand injuries are key areas to target to reduce error rates.
authors.affiliation: St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Tooting, London, UK.
authors.forename: Alexander Ej
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Trevatt
authors.affiliation: Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, Barnet Hospital, Barnet, Hertfordshire, UK.
authors.forename: Oliver J
authors.initials: OJ
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, Barnet Hospital, Barnet, Hertfordshire, UK.
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Needleman
authors.affiliation: Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, Barnet Hospital, Barnet, Hertfordshire, UK Ashis.banerjee@nhs.net.
authors.forename: Ashis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Banerjee
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003951:Diagnostic Errors / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006230:Hand Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000191:economics* / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D008297:Male; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014962:X-Ray Film / Q000592:standards
keywords: Emergency Department; Hand injury; error; litigation