From: Ozarks

A new study says doctors sometimes miss warnings about abnormal results in their patients when using electronic medical records.

   Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston found doctors failed to follow up on about 8-percent of electronic alerts, indicating something abnormal had been found in an X-ray, mammogram or MRI scan that required immediate attention.

   The researchers conclude while electronic medical records are helpful, they don't eliminate the problem of missed test results.

   Researchers looked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has been using electronic medical records for nearly a decade.

   They looked at alert notifications from one VA hospital between November 2007 and June 2008.

   Out of nearly 124,000 tests, 1,200 generated alerts indicating an abnormal result.

   Of those, in more than seven-percent of cases, patents never received timely follow-up.

   In nearly all of those cases, the result was a worsening of the patients' conditions.

   Study details appear in the "Archives of Internal Medicine."