Common causes of ‘emotional harm’ adverse events in the radiology department
Adverse reporting in radiology largely focuses on physical harm. However, instances of emotional trauma in imaging are underreported, preventable and warrant increased attention, experts detailed Tuesday in Radiology.
Disrespectful communication and failure to deliver patient-centered care were the most common causes of these incidents, based on a review of adverse reports logged at a single tertiary hospital. Radiology providers could avoid nearly 80% of emotional harm incidents, researchers estimate, through training on active listening, unearthing patient preferences, and “closed-loop communication,” used to avoid misunderstandings.
“Emotional harm following incidents in healthcare may lead to loss of trust, with the patient foregoing needed care in the future. However, investigations of emotional harm in radiology departments remain lacking,” radiologist Bettina Siewert, MD, vice chair for quality and safety at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues wrote Nov. 23.
To close this knowledge gap, researchers retrospectively analyzed adverse event reports logged between 2014-2020 and filed under the category “dignity and respect.” Out of 3,032 radiology-related incidents at the single hospital, 43 involved emotional harm. “Failure to be patient centered” led the way at 54% of such instances, followed by disrespectful communication (37%), violating privacy (5%), minimizing patient concern (2%) and “loss of property” (2%).
Of the 43 incidents of emotional harm, 74% involved patients while the other 26% related to staff members, with disrespectful communication the most common cause among the latter. Siewert et al. pinpointed 73 countermeasures to help address this issue, including staff communication training (44%), individual feedback (25%), system innovation (22%), improving existing communication processes (4%) and process reminders (4%).
In a corresponding editorial, Michael Bruno, MD, called this an “important issue” for the profession while noting that emotional harm in radiology is “real.”
“Whereas the total number of such incidents was small and apparently less than previously described in other medical specialties (5), this result is nonetheless an uncomfortable one,” wrote Bruno, who is vice chair for quality and chief of emergency radiology at Penn State University. “Hopefully, the publication of this research will stimulate action throughout our discipline aimed at bringing about needed and desirable changes in the way we do business in radiology.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.