Jan 20, 2022 - Health

Study finds bias against Black patients written into medical charts

Tina Reed

Illustration of a computer with a flatlining EKG on the screen — Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Black patients were more than two-and-a-half times as likely as white patients to have negative descriptors about them in their electronic health record, according to a study published Wednesday in Health Affairs.

Why it matters: The study is further evidence of bias in the U.S. health care system, which can ultimately result in worse care and disparately poor outcomes.

Details: University of Chicago researchers used machine learning to analyze more than 40,000 notes in the EHRs of more than 18,000 patients at an urban academic medical center.

The study looked for sentences that included negative descriptors such as "resistant," "challenging" or "noncompliant."
Even when controlling for individuals' sociodemographic and health characteristics, Black patients were 2.54 times as likely to have a negative descriptor than white patients.

What they're saying: "Negative descriptors written in the admission history and physical [notes] may be likely to be copied into subsequent notes, recommunicating and amplifying potential biases," the authors wrote.

"This practice underscores the responsibility of providers who document the initial patient encounter to do so in an aware and sensitive manner," they wrote.

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Study finds bias against Black patients written into medical charts

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