How doctors describe patients matters —even in their notes

摘要

The language and labels that some physicians use to describe patients in medical records often fly under the radar, but they can provide a window into bias in health care.A recent study of the medical records of 18 459 Americans published in Health Affairs found that Black patients were 2.54 times more likely than white patients to have at least one negative descriptor such as "resistant" or "non-compliant" in their files. Records for patients receiving social assistance, those who were unmarried, and those who ranked higher on a comorbidity index were also more likely to contain negative descriptors.