Duplicate medical records raise patients’ risk of dying in hospital by 400%: BMJ study
Patients with duplicate medical records are also 200% more likely to be admitted to the ICU.
Patients whose medical records are accidentally duplicated have a 400% higher risk of in-hospital death and a 200% higher risk of ICU admission, suggests a study published in BMJ Quality & Safety.
Researchers identified 1698 patients across 12 hospitals in the US with multiple records in the same computer system and matched them to 4388 similar patients with single records.
In-hospital death occurred in 11% of patients with duplicate records compared with 2.5% of those without duplicate charts.
Patients with duplicate records were also three times more likely to reach ICU-level care and 1.3 times more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge.
