Few Hospitals Use Patient Race, Language Data to
Improve Care, Study Finds*
How do I break this to you gently? OK, I'll just say it. Improving patient care is not a current goal for health care facilities in the U.S. Now, patient satisfaction ratings are very important, but we can acheive those with nicer lobbies and executive suites. Patient care is very expensive. It's labor intensive and difficult to outsource. Now, we don't want to discredit the premise that disparities exist in health care across racial and ethnic groups. They do. Anyone who denies this is lying, stupid or bigoted, or any combination thereof.
The system is working on acheiving parity---equally bad care for everyone,regardless of race, ethnicity or social class. It's cheaper, and it's the future.
***Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: February 10,2006
RWJF - Grantmaking Portfolios - Disparities - News Digest