Emergency medicine
DEMO-02 — Discharge with a Pending Critical Result
Authored demonstration. Not a live employer result.
01 · Situation
The result came back critical. There was no one on record to receive it.
A patient is discharged from an illustrative emergency department before a lab result returns. The result returns after discharge and is classified critical by the lab's illustrative internal protocol. No follow-up owner is named on the discharge paperwork.
02 · Evidence
What the record holds.
- E0Illustrative departmental discharge-process policy, naming the follow-up-owner requirement for any discharge with a pending result
Verified · On file prior to Day 0
- E1Discharge summary, no pending-result follow-up owner named
Verified · Day 0
- E2Lab order placed pre-discharge
Verified · Day 0
- E3Result returns, classified critical by the lab's internal illustrative protocol — cited here as evidence of the result's status, not as a source of a notification duty
Verified · Day 1
- E4Critical-value callback log reviewed through Day 4; no outbound contact attempt recorded
Verified · Day 4
03 · Obligations / Owners
The chain of responsibility.
- 01
Ordering ED physician (name a follow-up owner before discharge if a result is pending, per the illustrative discharge-process policy in E0)
04 · Accountability Break
Where the chain broke.
The discharge occurred with a pending result and no named owner, as required by policy. No outbound contact attempt is evidenced afterward.
05 · Next Action
The corrective obligation.
No patient may be discharged with a pending result absent a named follow-up owner, enforced as a hard field on the discharge summary.
06 · Economic Boundary
Where the evidence stops.
Not applicable — this is a safety-gate record; no cost dimension is asserted.
07 · Engine Answer
What the Engine can and cannot establish.
The ordering physician was required, under the discharge-process policy named in E0, to name a follow-up owner on the discharge summary given a pending lab result. No owner is named on E1. The result returned critical per the lab's own internal protocol on Day 1, and the callback log, reviewed through Day 4, records no outbound contact attempt. The Engine can demonstrate that the naming obligation was not fulfilled at discharge and that no contact attempt is evidenced afterward. It cannot establish whether the patient was reached through an unreviewed channel, or what harm, if any, resulted.
The result came back critical. There was no one on record to receive it.