• Adam L Sharp, Rani Pallegadda, Aileen Baecker, Stacy Park, Najlla Nassery, Ahmed Hassoon, Susan Peterson, Samantha I Pitts, Zheyu Wang, Yuxin Zhu, and David E Newman-Toker.
• Department of Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, CA; Department of Health System Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA; Department of Emergency Medicine, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Los Angeles Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA; Department of Clinical Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA. Electronic address: adam.l.sharp@kp.org.
• Ann Emerg Med. 2022 Feb 1; 79 (2): 93-101.

Study ObjectiveTo assess if having a mental health and/or substance use disorder is associated with a missed acute myocardial infarction diagnosis in the emergency department (ED).MethodsThis was a retrospective cohort analysis (2009 to 2017) of adult ED encounters at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. We used the validated symptom-disease pair analysis of diagnostic error methodological approach to "look back" and "look forward" and identify missed acute myocardial infarctions within 30 days of a treat-and-release ED visit. We use adjusted logistic regression to report the odds of missed acute myocardial infarction among patients with a history of mental health and/or substance use disorders.ResultsThe look-back analysis identified 44,473 acute myocardial infarction hospital encounters; 574 (1.3%) diagnoses were missed. The odds of missed diagnoses were higher in patients with mental health disorders (odds ratio [OR] 1.48, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23 to 1.77) but not in those with substance abuse disorders (OR 1.22, 95% CI 0.91 to 1.62). The highest risk was observed in those with co-occurring disorders (OR 1.90, 95% CI 1.30 to 2.76). The look-forward analysis identified 325,088 chest pain/dyspnea ED encounters; 508 (0.2%) were missed acute myocardial infarctions. No significant associations of missed acute myocardial infarction were revealed in either group (mental health disorder: OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.71 to 1.18; substance use disorder: OR 1.22, 95% CI 0.80 to 1.85).ConclusionThe look-back analysis identified patients with mental illness at increased risk of missed acute myocardial infarction diagnosis, with the highest risk observed in those with a history of comorbid substance abuse. Having substance use disorders alone did not increase this risk in either cohort. The look-forward analysis revealed challenges in prospectively identifying high-risk patients to target for improvement.Copyright © 2021 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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