Patient safety in actioning and communicating blood test results in primary care: a UK wide audit using the Primary care Academic CollaboraTive (PACT) (25 July 2024)

Summary

Errors associated with failures in filing, actioning and communicating blood test results can lead to delayed and missed diagnoses and patient harm. This study aimed to audit how blood tests in primary care are filed, actioned and communicated, to identify areas for patient safety improvements.

Content

What this study adds

• When primary care clinicians retrospectively reviewed the electronic health records of 2572 patients who had recent blood tests, around 10% disagreed with the initial clinician’s actioning of test results.
• Out of the 1132 patients where an action (such as ‘book an appointment’) was specified, there was evidence in the electronic health records that this did occur in 89.7% (varying between 45.2% and 100% in participating practices).
• In 47% of patients (n=1210) there was no evidence in the electronic health records that results had been communicated to the patient.
• Around 50% of participating practices who completed a follow-up questionnaire had used their benchmarked results to stimulate quality improvement (QI) activities, practice learning or educational activities.

How this study might affect research, practice or policy

• This research demonstrates variation in the way blood test results are actioned and communicated to patients, with important patient safety implications.
• We have shown that using a collaborative model of research in primary care can help stimulate QI and could help widen participation in research beyond traditionally ‘research active’ general practices.