Kellan Baker, Center for American Progress
“A growing body of knowledge, including the federal government’s Healthy People 2020 plan for progress toward a healthier America over the next decade and two reports from the Institute of Medicine, demonstrates that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population faces significant disparities in health status and access to health care coverage and services.
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Frederik Joelving, Reuters
“Switching to electronic health records might help close health gaps between black and white Americans, researchers suggest in a new study.
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Samal L et al, Archives of Internal Medicine, 172(1)
Prior literature suggests that practice level characteristics mediate racial/ethnic disparities in clinical outcomes. One such practice level characteristic, use of electronic health records (EHRs) with clinical decision support (CDS), has been associated with improved blood pressure (BP) control in a national study.
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Haider AH, Pronovost PJ. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 37(10)
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.
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Weissman JS, Hasnain-Wynia R. N Engl J Med, 364(24)
Health care reform’s promise will not be realized if it fails to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care. The first step toward monitoring, identifying, and targeting the underlying causes of disparities is for health care organizations to collect and analyze data that adequately describe their populations. No single entity has the capacity to analyze disparities for the entire country, and one of the largest and most comprehensive sources of utilization — health insurance claims — lacks basic demographic data on the race and ethnic background of enrollees. It is therefore worthwhile to examine the status of data collection and future options.
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López L et al, Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 37(10)
BACKGROUND:
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care have been consistently documented in the diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of many common clinical conditions. There has been an acceleration of health information technology (HIT) implementation in the United States, with health care reform legislation including multiple provisions for collecting and using health information to improve and monitor quality and efficiency in health care. Despite an uneven and generally low level of implementation, research has demonstrated that HIT has the potential to improve quality of care and patient safety. If carefully designed and implemented, HIT also has the potential to eliminate disparities.
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MarketWatch
“Differences in the quality and safety of medical treatment that minorities receive could be reduced through the better use of health information technology (HIT), according to a new article published in the October 2011 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety(TM).
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Margalit Gur-Arie, The Health Care Blog
“Health care is in the process of getting itself computerized. Fashionably late to the party, health care is making a big entrance into the information age, because health care is well positioned to become a big player in the ongoing Big Data game. In case you haven’t noticed computerized health care, which used to be the realm of obscure and mostly small companies, is now attracting interest from household names such as IBM, Google, AT&T, Verizon and Microsoft, just to name a few.
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Chris Gibbons, Healthcare Disparities Solutions Blog
“While there may not be consensus as to the causes of health, Healthcare or Health IT disparities, it is increasingly clear that disparities are a complex phenomenon resulting from the interactions of many factors. Also, with almost a decade’s worth of the National Healthcare Disparities Reports behind us, it is clear that addressing disparities defies simplistic solutions. As we all believe that the complexity of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and HIV/AIDS will not stop us from one day finding a cure, I firmly believe that this same tenacity of spirit is needed to successfully surmount the challenges of disparities.
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Jean-Jacques M et al, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2011
BACKGROUND
Health information technology (HIT)-supported quality improvement initiatives have been shown to increase ambulatory care quality for several chronic conditions and preventive services, but it is not known whether these types of initiatives reduce disparities.
OBJECTIVES
To examine the effects of a multifaceted, HIT-supported quality improvement initiative on disparities in ambulatory care.
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Ken Terry, InformationWeek
“Increased use of telemedicine could help reduce the significant disparities between rural healthcare and the healthcare delivered in urban and suburban areas.
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CMIO
“Collecting data and linking them to quality measures are vital for targeting efforts at reducing racial and ethnic disparities in care, according to a June 16 perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Ancker JS et al, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2011
BACKGROUND:
Electronic patient portals give patients access to information from their electronic health record and the ability to message their providers. These tools are becoming more widely used and are expected to promote patient engagement with health care.
OBJECTIVE:
To quantify portal usage and explore potential differences in adoption and use according to patients’ socioeconomic and clinical characteristics in a network of federally qualified health centers serving New York City and neighboring counties.
DESIGN:
Retrospective analysis of data from portal and electronic health records.
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Beaudoin CE, Hong T. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2011
Purpose
Research over the past decade has conveyed a dramatic rise in health information seeking via the Internet and articulated various profiles and outcomes of health information seeking. In building upon this research, the current study is innovative in considering predictors of health information seeking by medium, as well as outcomes of health information seeking by medium and by critical demographics.
Methods
OLS regression and logistic regression are conducted on data from a telephone survey of American adults in 2007 (N = 700).
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Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Health Populi
“Health professionals are go-to sources for medical diagnoses, information about prescription drugs and alternative treatments, and recommendations for doctors and hospitals. On the other hand, health information seekers turn to fellow patients, friends and family for emotional support in dealing with health issues, and quick remedies for everyday issues.
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Joseph C. Kvedar, Healthcare IT News
“Often when I speak about connected health, I am asked ‘What are you doing to provide these services to communities with health disparities?’ For many years, connected health advocates took it on the chin when this important topic was brought up. We relied heavily on home computers and home Internet access to achieve the power of our programs.
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Goel MS et al, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2011
BACKGROUND:
With emphasis on the meaningful use of electronic health records, patient portals are likely to become increasingly important. Little is known about patient enrollment in, and use of, patient portals after explicit invitation from providers.
OBJECTIVES:
To examine enrollment in, and use of, an electronic patient portal by race/ethnicity, gender and age.
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Pamela Lewis Dolan, amednews
“As the federal government strengthens its push for health information technology adoption among physicians, there is growing concern that the effort may increase health care disparities in minority communities by adding a digital divide to the mix.
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Sarkar U et al, J Am Med Inform Assoc, 18(3)
The authors investigated use of the internet-based patient portal, kp.org, among a well-characterized population of adults with diabetes in Northern California. Among 14 102 diverse patients, 5671 (40%) requested a password for the patient portal. Of these, 4311 (76%) activated their accounts, and 3922 (69%), logged on to the patient portal one or more times; 2990 (53%) participants viewed laboratory results, 2132 (38%) requested medication refills, 2093 (37%) sent email messages, and 835 (15%) made medical appointments.
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Peter Buxbaum, Government Health IT
“Does a “digital divide” separating health IT “haves” and “have-nots” threaten potential improvements in healthcare delivery and outcomes among minority communities in the United States? The answer is: it’s too early to tell, but few organizations are going out of their way to ensure minority and majority communities become equally wired for electronic health record systems.
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