Pathology-related cases in the Norwegian System of Patient Injury Compensation in the period 2010-2015.

BACKGROUND

The Norwegian System of Patient Injury Compensation (NPE) processes compensation claims from patients who complain about malpractice in the health services. A wrong diagnosis in pathology may cause serious injury to the patient, but the incidence of compensation claims is unknown, because pathology is not specified as a separate category in NPE’s statistics. Knowledge about errors is required to assess quality-enhancing measures. We have therefore searched through the NPE records to identify cases whose background stems from errors committed in pathology departments and laboratories.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

We have searched through the NPE records for cases related to pathology for the years 2010 – 2015.

RESULTS

During this period the NPE processed a total of 26 600 cases, of which 93 were related to pathology. The compensation claim was upheld in 66 cases, resulting in total compensation payments amounting to NOK 63 million. False-negative results in the form of undetected diagnoses were the most frequent grounds for compensation claims (63 cases), with an undetected malignant melanoma (n = 23) or atypia in cell samples from the cervix uteri (n = 16) as the major groups. Sixteen cases involved non-diagnostic issues such as mix-up of samples (n = 8), contamination of samples (n = 4) or delayed responses (n = 4).

INTERPRETATION

The number of compensation claims caused by errors in pathology diagnostics is low in relative terms. The errors may, however, be of a serious nature, especially if malignant conditions are overlooked or samples mixed up.