Kearny’s residents often rely on a mix of emergency care, outpatient testing, and follow-up appointments. Diagnostic mistakes can occur at any stage, including:
- ER triage and repeat visits: symptoms that worsen while test results are pending, or follow-up instructions that don’t match the risk level.
- Imaging and lab turnaround issues: delays in reading results, miscommunication of abnormal findings, or incomplete handoff notes.
- Specialty referral gaps: when the system routes you to the “next available” appointment instead of the next medically appropriate step.
- AI-assisted documentation or decision support: tools that summarize symptoms, suggest likely conditions, or influence what gets ordered—sometimes without adequate verification against objective findings.
The key legal question isn’t whether technology exists. It’s whether the care team and the facility met the accepted standard of care for the information available at the time.


