Study: Electronic Health Records Reveal Racial Bias in Healthcare

Black patients are 2.54 times as likely to have negative descriptors on their electronic health records (EHR) as white patients, according to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs. The paper, authored by Michael Sun and colleagues, examined 40,000 health records taken from January 2019 to October 2020. Negative descriptors terms like “challenging,” “difficult,” and “resistant” have real impact on patient care.

According to the study, “These and similar descriptors are not explicitly stigmatizing terms, but they may impart a negative connotation in the context of describing a patient. Jenny Park and colleagues used qualitative methods to analyze medical charts and documented five common types of negative language, which included portraying patients as difficult and stereotyping on the basis of race or social class. Goddu and colleagues observed in their study of hypothetical chart notes that explicitly stigmatizing language (that is, language that conjured up negative stereotypes) negatively affected respondents’ attitudes toward the patient and resulted in less aggressive pain management plans.”

Read the study by clicking here.

(Source: Health Affairs, January 19^th, 2022)