Test Result Management Practices of Canadian Internal Medicine Physicians and Trainees

Background Missed test results are a cause of medical error. Few studies have explored test result management in the inpatient setting. Objective To examine test result management practices of general internal medicine providers in the inpatient setting, examine satisfaction with practices, and quantify self-reported delays in result follow-up. Design Cross-sectional survey. Participants General internal medicine attending physicians and trainees (residents and medical students) at three Canadian teaching hospitals. Main Measures Methods used to track test results; satisfaction with these methods; personal encounters with results respondents “wish they had known about sooner.” Key Results We received surveys from 33/51 attendings and 99/108 trainees (response rate 83%). Only 40.9% of respondents kept a record of all tests they order, and 50.0% had a system to ensure ordered tests were completed. Methods for tracking test results included typed team sign-out lists (40.7%), electronic health record (EHR) functionality (e.g., the electronic “inbox”) (38.9%), and personal written or typed lists (14.8%). Almost all trainees (97.9%) and attendings (81.2%) reported encountering at least one test result they “wish they had known about sooner” in the past 2 months ( p = 0.001). A higher percentage of attendings kept a record of tests pending at hospital discharge compared to trainees (75.0% vs. 35.7%, p