A policy adopted by physicians, residents, and medical students at the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Special Meeting of its House of Delegates (HOD) opposes “excited delirium” as a medical diagnosis and warns against the use of certain pharmacological interventions solely for a law enforcement purpose without a legitimate medical reason. More
The AMA's new push to grapple with health equity highlights a growing consciousness. And it's complicated. More
In 2021, the Lown Institute, an independent think tank, released a ranking system for U.S. hospitals’ on the degree to which they are adequately caring for the lower income and patients of color. Sadly, only two Atlanta metro area hospitals ranked in the top 100 for racial inclusivity, Grady Memorial Hospital and Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center and Emory University Hospital Midtown. This is likely a function of their location in downtown Atlanta rather than an actual strategy to address racial inclusivity and health equity. More
When estimating how well a patient’s kidneys are working, doctors frequently turn to an equation that depends on a question: Is the patient Black? More
The covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the challenges facing rural health care, such as lack of broadband internet access and limited public transportation. For much of the vaccine rollout, those barriers have made it difficult for providers, like community health centers, to get shots into the arms of their patients. More
“Hospitals reside in communities and are part of communities. Our view is they shouldn’t just serve a community, they should genuinely be part of a community,” said Vikas Saini, a physician and president of the Lown Institute. “A lot of the contemporary rankings that look at reputation or mortality, surgical complications, don’t capture that dimension. We set out to create a lens through which to view the hospital system that’s different.”
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It’s called the “history of present illness,” or HPI, and it often includes a patient’s race—which is more likely to detract from care than to improve it More
A new study challenges the conventional wisdom on why many doctors refuse to take Medicaid patients. More
The lack of paid sick leave for all disproportionately impacts women and exacerbates the disparities they already face in the workplace. More
Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Some of them look to Black doctors for a sense of safety and connection, while medical schools add anti-racism training. More
In his new book, “The Black Butterfly,” public health scholar Lawrence Brown explores how urban housing and land use policies have been deployed as weapons of oppression against African Americans. More
The Lown Institute's report is yet another effort in a series of recent attempts to quantify and rank health care organizations' progress on achieving health equity. The authors delivered a bold and necessary message: Hospitals across the U.S. are racially segregated—that is to say, their Medicare patients' racial demographics don't match the demographics in their surrounding communities. These results might come as a shock to some—especially for those working at hospitals near the bottom of the list. But this data shouldn't be surprising. More
A new tool called the Health Equity Tracker collects, analyzes, and makes visible data on health disparities entrenched in U.S. medicine. More
This Medical News feature examines racial and ethnic disparities in the diagnosis and treatment of cystic fibrosis. More
“I hate that it closed,” Latasha Taylor said. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would you close a hospital in the middle of a pandemic?” More
What's causing segregation in our health system, and what can we do about it? Watch the recording of the Lown Hospitals Index racial inclusivity launch to find out. More
Two north Georgia hospitals fall among the 50 most segregated in U.S. metropolitan areas, and metro Atlanta tied for the largest number of such hospitals overall, according to a new study by the Lown Institute. More
Overall, in the top 50 most inclusive hospitals, people of color made up 61% of patients on average, compared to 17% in the bottom 50 hospitals. “This seems to be how the system works — [there is] a pattern of de facto segregation,” Saini, of the Lown Institute, said. In large urban areas, safety-net hospitals, which provide care regardless of a patient’s insurance status or ability to pay, almost exclusively cater to low-income people of color while other hospitals in the area take care of a whiter, richer population, Saini said. While there are several factors, including residential segregation and insurance status, driving this trend, it is a pretty clear example of structural racism. “The example I’ve been using is can anyone imagine having a Black airport and a white airport a mile apart? Does that even make any sense? And yet in some ways, that’s what we have with hospitals,” he said. More
A new ranking from the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan healthcare think tank, examines racial inclusivity of more than 3,200 U.S. hospitals to assess which are best at serving the people of color in their communities. More
“The difference between the most and least inclusive hospitals is stark, especially when they are blocks away from each other,” Vikas Saini, M.D., president of the Lown Institute. “As the nation reckons with racial injustice, we cannot overlook our health system. Hospital leaders have a responsibility to better serve people of color and create a more equitable future.” More