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How Patient Descriptors Influence Racial Bias in the Electronic Health Record
On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Michael Sun, a medical student at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, who served as first author of a Health Affairs study showing that race and bias were significantly associated with negative patient descriptors in the electronic health record.
Although racism and bias have been long documented issues affecting health equity, findings of a recent study published in Health Affairs indicates these issues may be more embedded in the US health care system than originally thought.
Examining electronic health records (EHRs) from an urban academic medical center, researchers found that negative descriptors were significantly more likely to appear in the records of Black patients compared with White patients. Other factors—such as insurance type, marriage status, and even the COVID-19 pandemic—influenced the odds of having this potentially stigmatizing language appear in a patient’s EHR.
On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with the first author on the study, Michael Sun, a medical student at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, on the findings, as well as the steps that can be taken to increase awareness among clinicians of these stigmatizing descriptors.
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NGS-Based Test Accurately Detects Post–Allo-HSCT Relapse in AML, MDS
February 21st 2025The next-generation sequencing (NGS)–based AlloHeme test accurately predicted relapse following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).
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Varied Access: The Pharmacogenetic Testing Coverage Divide
February 18th 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with the author of a study published in the February 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® to uncover significant differences in coverage decisions for pharmacogenetic tests across major US health insurers.
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Insurance Payer Is Associated With Length of Stay After Traumatic Brain Injury
February 21st 2025Among hospitalized patients with traumatic brain injury, Medicaid fee-for-service was associated with longer hospital stays than private insurance and Medicaid managed care organizations.
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NSCLC Advancements Offer Hope, but Disparities Persist
February 20th 2025Ioana Bonta, MD, Georgia Cancer Specialists, discusses the evolving state of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatments, their impact on patient outcomes, and the need to address ongoing disparities in these populations.
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Abortion in 2025: Access, Fertility, and Infant Mortality Updates
February 20th 2025While Republican state-led efforts aim to increase restrictions to abortion care and access to mifepristone and misoprostol in 2025, JAMA authors join the conversation with their published research and commentary.
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