A new study from the Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative (Mi-CHEC) has revealed significant inaccuracies in racial and ethnic designations within electronic medical records at three major pediatric hospitals. These errors could potentially undermine efforts to address health inequities among children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
The research, published in JAMA Network Open, found error rates in race designations ranging from 22% to 59%, while errors in ethnicity ranged from 5% to 35%. This level of inaccuracy poses a serious challenge to identifying and addressing health disparities in conditions such as asthma, obesity, and diabetes among pediatric patients.
Dr. Gary L. Freed, lead author and Mi-CHEC founder, emphasized the importance of accurate data in tackling health inequities. “If we don’t know which children are which race or ethnicity, we won’t know if there’s a problem and if efforts to fix the problem are successful or not,” he stated.
The study suggests that the expanding range of racial and ethnic categories used by health systems may contribute to these errors. While intended to promote inclusivity, the increased number of options appears to correlate with higher error rates in electronic medical records.
These findings have significant implications for quality improvement initiatives aimed at reducing health disparities. Without accurate data, hospitals may miss existing inequities or attempt to address non-existent problems.
Mi-CHEC plans to work on improving data accuracy within its health systems and encourages other hospitals nationwide to assess their own data quality. In the meantime, the collaborative has developed statistical correction factors to enhance the accuracy of their inequity assessments.
