[Diagnostic concordance between emergency room and hospitalization in medical patients]

The purpose of this study was to know the concordance of diagnosis between emergency rooms amd hospitalization wards and to analyze the mistake index, the epidemiological characteristics and the main reasons for the mistakes.

We analyzed hospitalized patients and used a three-level concordance: exact diagnosis (A), syndromical concordance (B) and mistake (C). We compared age, sex, time and days of hospitalization between the groups A+B and C. We also analyzed the causes of mistakes in group C.

We found 88.1% of patients in level A, 7.3% in level B and 4.6% in level C. There were no significant differences in the variables analyzed. Main mistakes were a deficient clinical evaluation (50%) and X-ray interpretation (28.6%).

Concordance of diagnoses was the rule, with less than 5% mistakes. There is no clinical or epidemiological pattern for the mistake. The most frequent cause for it was a deficient clinical evaluation.