• Timothy J Sanford, Pranav Kaul, and Danielle M McCarthy.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
• Acad Emerg Med. 2024 Nov 12.

BackgroundThe 2022 study on diagnostic error in the emergency department (ED) published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reported that one in every 18 ED patients is misdiagnosed. The report was methodologically critiqued by emergency physicians and researchers. However, little is known about public perception of error in the ED. We sought to characterize public response to AHRQ's publication.MethodsA search was conducted for online news articles published December 2022 reporting the AHRQ study and containing "public comment" sections. Verbatim comments and relevant characteristics were collected. Three coders completed content analysis and resolved any differences. Descriptive statistics and themes are reported.ResultsFifteen online articles were reviewed; three had public comment sections (New York Times, DailyMail, and Boston Globe). There were 553 unique user comments; 293 were original comments (53%) and 260 were replies to comments (47%). The 260 replies were in response to 113 original comments, with the remaining original comments having 0 replies (n = 180). Of the 202 commenters who identified a personal role in a health care encounter, 70 (35%) identified as patients and 68 (34%) identified as physicians. Comments centered on seven major themes: (1) negative personal experiences, (2) reframing study conclusions, (3) sense of decline in training standards, (4) internal stressors impeding ED diagnostic accuracy, (5) external stressors impeding ED diagnostic accuracy, (6) suggested solutions, and (7) role of the ED in diagnosis.ConclusionsThe news coverage of AHRQ's report provided individuals a platform to share their perspectives. Many comments reflected a nuanced understanding of the role of emergency care and the stressors of the ED environment. Despite questions about the report's accuracy, there were many individuals who shared personal negative experiences suggesting that the public may feel directly impacted by error in the ED.© 2024 The Author(s). Academic Emergency Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

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