Medical records study reveals racial bias

A ground-breaking study found glaring disparities in the language that healthcare professionals use when recording patient interactions, which could have an impact on the caliber of care that minority groups receive. Titled “Examining Linguistic Differences in Electronic Health Records for Diverse Patients with Diabetes: Natural Language Processing Analysis,”& the study analyzed electronic health records (EHRs) of Black, white, and Hispanic or Latino patients treated by 281 physicians in a major metropolitan area. The findings highlight how racial and ethnic biases may permeate even the most intimate and routine aspects of healthcare. The research, which Eden King, the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Psychological Sciences at Rice University, led, sought to ascertain whether doctors use biased language when describing patients in post-visit reports. “Language and communication are central to social interactions across cultures, including the critical exchanges that occur between clinicians and patients,” King stated. “Our study sought to uncover whether the words physicians use in health records reflect biases, and the results are concerning.” The study employed a sophisticated natural language processing tool, the Sentiment Analysis and Social Cognition Engine (SEANCE), to examine various linguistic markers in the EHR text. The analysis revealed that physicians’ notes for Black and Hispanic...