ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2008
Patient safety and telephone medicine : some lessons from closed claim case review.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Role of Language in Remote Healthcare Triage: A Meta-Aggregative Review.Journal of advanced nursing · 2025Pooled it
- Training interventions for improving telephone consultation skills in clinicians.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Barriers and Facilitators of Digital Transformation in Health Care: Mixed Methods Study.Journal of participatory medicine · 2026Article
- Accuracy of urgency allocation in patients with shortness of breath calling out-of-hours primary care: a cross-sectional study.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Safety in Teletriage by Nurses and Physicians in the United States and Israel: Narrative Review and Qualitative Study.JMIR human factors · 2024Review
- Evaluation and significance of a digital assistant for patient history-taking and physical examination in telemedicine.Oxford open digital health · 2024Article
- Examining the Role of Telemedicine in Diabetic Retinopathy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Development of a Digital Assistant to Support Teleconsultations Between Remote Physicians and Frontline Health Workers in India: User-Centered Design Approach.JMIR human factors · 2023Article
- Article
- Digital health technology-specific risks for medical malpractice liability.NPJ digital medicine · 2022Review
- Article
- Clinical Efficiency and Safety Outcomes of Virtual Care for Oncology Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic.JCO oncology practice · 2021Article
- The Development of a Video Intervention to Improve Senior Medical Students' Performance on Outpatient Telephone Encounters: a Delphi Analysis and Randomized Controlled Trial.Medical science educator · 2021Article
- COVID-19 is accelerating the acceptance of telemedicine in India.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2020Article
- Assessing patient safety in a pediatric telemedicine setting: a multi-methods study.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2020Article
- Observational
- The game of telephone: a sustained, low-cost, quality improvement initiative to enhance communication between patients and their resident physician.BMJ open quality · 2017Article
- Emergency medical triage decisions are swayed by computer-manipulated cues of physical dominance in caller's voice.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Telemedicine: Pediatric Applications.Pediatrics · 2015Review
- Clinical decision support improves quality of telephone triage documentation--an analysis of triage documentation before and after computerized clinical decision support.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe telephone can facilitate medical care but also result in adverse outcomes leading to telephone-related malpractice suits. Analyzing claims might identify errors amenable to prevention. The objective of the study was to describe medical errors involving the telephone in patient-clinician encounters that significantly impacted medical care and medico-legal outcomes.
designThe design of the study was a descriptive, retrospective case review of telephone-related closed malpractice claims that included depositions, expert witness testimony, medical records, allegations, injuries, and outcomes. PATIENTS/
participantsForty defendants from 32 cases coded specifically as telephone related by a major provider of malpractice insurance. Leading specialists sued: Internists, pediatricians, and obstetricians. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN
resultsCases were reviewed by a physician experienced in telephone medicine and independently checked by a risk management nurse specialist and discussed by 2 additional risk management analysts before arriving at full agreement. Twenty-four (60%) cases were settled or awarded to the plaintiff. The most common allegation was failed diagnosis (68%), most common injury was death (44%), and most common setting was general medicine ambulatory practice. Leading errors were documentation (88%) and faulty triage (84%). The average indemnity was $518,932, with a total indemnity of $12,454,375.
conclusionsTelephone-related claims were costly; injuries were catastrophic. Poor documentation and faulty triage were major factors influencing care and legal outcome. Telephone errors may represent the tip of the iceberg in patient safety in ambulatory practice; however, these preliminary results need to be confirmed in a larger sample of cases.
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Registered trials
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