Date and Time
March 10, 2004
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Availability
Open to the public
No RSVP required

Speaker
Rachel Werner, MD - Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System

Racial and ethnic disparities in quality of health care are well documented, and reducing these disparities has become an important research priority. One area that has not been well researched is the impact of "report cards" on health disparities. In Pennsylvania, the quality of surgeons and hospitals has been published for over a decade. On one hand, these report cards may have improved the overall quality of care for CABG patients and could potentially have a greater impact on the quality of care for groups that have historically experienced poor outcomes, such as racial and ethnic minorities. On the other hand, CABG report cards may have led to selection effects whereby cardiac surgeons preferentially treat healthier patients over sicker patients, and racial and ethnic minorities are often perceived as sicker than white patients. Finally, CABG report cards may be differentially used by persons of higher SES. As racial and ethnic minorities have lower SES on average, this could increase outcome disparities. Because of these competing effects, the impact of CABG report cards on the health care of racial and ethnic minorities is ambiguous. We are studying the impact of CABG report cards on treatment of racial and ethnic minorities by high-quality surgeons and hospitals in the state of Pennsylvania. Using Pennsylvania discharge data, we are studying the sorting of patients by race and ethnicity to high- versus low-quality surgeons and hospitals. The results of this study could impact future interventions that could reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health care.