Interprofessional Diagnostic Management Teams: A Scoping Review Protocol

Abstract Background: The diagnostic process has been a blind spot in relation to patient safety. A Danish evaluation of cases concerning treatment injuries from 2009 to 2018 shows that 14.5% (13,000 out of 90,000) of all settled cases are related to diagnostic errors. The report from 2019 points out the importance of incorporating teamwork in the diagnostic process. An American report from 2015 suggests implementing diagnostic management teams, including patients and their relatives, diagnosticians, and healthcare professionals who support the diagnostic process, as a way to limit diagnostic error and improve patient safety. The objective of this scoping review is to map and understand the extent and type of evidence in relation to interprofessional diagnostic management teams, providing diagnostic care in the healthcare system, in general, for adults and children with somatic conditions. Methods: We will conduct this scoping review according to the PRISMA 2020 statement. We will systematically search five databases (EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, Academic Search Premier and SCOPUS) for papers published between 1985 and 2022 that describe the use of interprofessional diagnostic management teams. Two independent reviewers will screen titles/abstracts and full text articles based on whether they meet the inclusion criteria. The participants included will be adults and children seeking diagnostic care for a somatic condition. The concept studied will be interprofessional diagnostic management teams, and the context will be the diagnostic process in the healthcare system. Studies examining the diagnostic process in psychiatry, odontology or complementary medicine will be excluded. Any disagreement will be resolved by discussion and eventually by consulting a third reviewer. Data extraction will include study characteristics and findings. Discussion: Despite the severity of the problem, this will be the first scoping review on interprofessional diagnostic management teams. This scoping review attempts to shed an important and needed light on the diagnostic process in relation to the improvement of patient safety. Protocol registration: The project is registered at Open Science Framework (OSF) with ID: osf.io/kv2n6