Regular discrepancy meetings are universally implemented as part of quality assurance programmes in radiology departments in the UK. The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) has published standards detailing how to utilize the meetings as a tool for shared learning and to minimize patient harm. The purpose of this presentation is to detail some of the trends and highlight lessons learned during 2014 from musculoskeletal imaging errors discussed at our departmental discrepancy meetings.

Our institution utilizes an anonymous, form-based method to forward cases to the discrepancies meeting. Forms are collected by the meeting conductor and discussed with attendees following the monthly clinical governance meeting. Forms are analysed to establish trends and collate key learning points to share with the department. For each case, the imaging study type, study date, date of detection of the abnormality, and details of the discrepancy were recorded, and the diagnostic difficulty and potential clinical impact of the error was agreed in discussion at...

During 2014, seven discrepancy meetings were held. A total of 88 cases were discussed with 48 of these related to musculoskeletal radiology (55%). The time interval from when the error was made to when the discrepancy was identified ranged from 0-363 days with an average of 32 days and median of eight days. Almost all (47, 98%) the musculoskeletal discrepancies were identified on plain radiography apart from one case where spinal metastases were missed on a CT of the abdomen and pelvis. Where the discrepancy...

Error is intrinsic in radiology. The daily error rate in radiology has been estimated to be between 3.5-4% and approximately 30% if considering only examinations which have confirmed abnormalities1. The cases presented to our discrepancy meetings are prone to selection bias and are not a true representation of the types of discrepancy or the error rate that occurs during day-to-day practice. The commonest error type in our meetings was perceptual (71%) which correlates with the findings of Renfrew et. al. who showed that perceptual errors...

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