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How often are patients not informed about abnormal test results? To find out, researchers retrospectively reviewed records for more than 5400 outpatients (age range, 50–69) who were treated at 23 U.S. primary care practices. Randomly selected records were examined for results of 11 blood tests and 3 screening tests (e.g., abnormal mammogram finding, serum potassium level <3.0 or >5.5 mEq/L). Physicians were given the opportunity to state whether they actually had notified patients but had failed to document that notification.
A total of 1889 abnormal test results were identified; in 117 instances (6%), patients were not notified. Practices with established processes for handling test results (i.e., all results are routed to the responsible p…