Electronic interfaces configured between the Med Access EMR (Electronic Medical Record) and regional Service Providers enable the automatic delivery directly into the patient’s chart in the EMR of Lab and Diagnostic Imaging (DI) results and hospital Transcribed Reports, e.g., Discharge Summaries, Operating Room (OR) Reports, etc. Collectively, these documents are known as ‘electronic results’.
Results will sometimes make their way to an unintended target, usually due to registration errors at the originating facility. This can create inconvenience and workload concerns for providers and their staff, privacy and even potentially patient safety issues.
In order to manage these misdirected results, the Reconcile User role is critical. The reconcile user is a staff member whose responsibilities include the assignment of unmatched or unconfirmed results coming into the EMR instance to the right provider, make every effort to ensure they reach the intended destination or are returned to the point of origin if this is not clear.
It is recommended that, in order to fulfil the medicolegal and professional obligations associated with receipt of results, users receiving misdirected results make reasonable efforts to ensure that they are redirected to the appropriate provider, when contact information for the provider is known.
The recommended procedure for addressing misdirected results had been approved by the EMR Management Committee and can be found below:
Results Received in Error Process