In the U.S. alone, over 145 million emergency department visits occur each year, with nearly 6% resulting in missed diagnoses, particularly for high-risk conditions like stroke, sepsis, or myocardial infarction. Emergency departments and acute-care units operate at the intersection of time pressure, clinical complexity, and incomplete information. That environment creates four interrelated challenges that undermine patient safety, clinician well-being, and system performance: diagnostic error, operational inefficiency and overuse, clinician burnout driven by administrative burden, and wide variation in guideline adherence.
