Abstract
Racial disparities in health care delivery and patient outcomes exist and persist unabatedly in the health care system in the United States. One potentially modifiable mechanism for disparities attributed to health care is the quality of care provided to minorities. Minorities tend to receive lower-quality health care even when insurance status and income are controlled. Black patients receive less intensive hospital care, for example, receiving fewer cardiac procedures, lung resections for cancer, and kidney and bone marrow transplants. Partially because of geography, minority patients also tend to seek care at a relatively small number of lower-performing institutions and thus are disproportionately affected by suboptimal quality of care. For example, trauma patients seen at hospitals with more than 50% minority patients have a 37% higher adjusted odds of death when compared with similarly injured patients treated at hospitals with less than 25% minority patients.
Haider AH, Pronovost PJ. Health information technology and the collection of race, ethnicity, and language data to reduce disparities in quality of care. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2011 Oct;37(10):435–6.
