Anatomic pathology databases and patient safety.

Context: The utility of anatomic pathology discrepancies has not been rigorously studied.

Objective: To outline how databases may be used to study anatomic pathology patient safety.

Design: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality funded the creation of a national anatomic pathology errors database to establish benchmarks for error frequency. The database is used to track more frequent errors and errors that result in more serious harm, in order to design quality improvement interventions intended to reduce these types of errors. In the first year of funding, 4 institutions (University of Pittsburgh, Henry Ford Hospital, University of Iowa, and Western Pennsylvania Hospital) reported cytologic-histologic correlation error data after standardizing correlation methods. Root cause analysis was performed to determine sources of error, and error reduction plans were implemented.

Participants: Four institutions self-reported anatomic pathology error data.

Main Outcome Measures: Frequency of cytologic-histologic correlation error, case type, cause of error (sampling or interpretation), and effect of error on patient outcome (ie, no harm, near miss, and harm).

Results: The institutional gynecologic cytologic-histologic correlation error frequency ranged from 0.17% to 0.63%, using the denominator of all Papanicolaou tests. Based on the nongynecologic cytologic-histologic correlation data, the specimen sites with the highest discrepancy frequency (by project site) were lung (ranging from 16.5% to 62.3% of all errors) and urinary bladder (ranging from 4.4% to 25.0%). Most errors detected by the gynecologic cytologic-histologic correlation process were no-harm events (ranging from 10.7% to 43.2% by project site). Root cause analysis identified sources of error on both the clinical and pathology sides of the process, and error intervention programs are currently being implemented to improve patient safety.

Conclusions: A multi-institutional anatomic pathology error database may be used to benchmark practices and target specific high-frequency errors or errors with high clinical impact. These error reduction programs have national import.