Background: Race and racism are social determinants of health resulting in marginalized groups often experiencing worse health outcomes. These racial differences are often due to physician bias as well as biased processes. To mitigate this, it is recommended that clinicians avoid reifying racial differences as biological differences. This study describes the use of racial identifiers [...]

Background: Hospitalists are core to the U.S. inpatient provider workforce and serve a central role in adults’ inpatient health system interactions. Over 11 million Americans identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) [1] and 1 in 6 LGBTQ Americans describe facing discrimination in the medical setting [2]. To provide culturally responsive and clinically [...]

Background: Unconscious bias within the U.S. health care system has been linked with disparities in the treatment of patients by age, gender, and race (1). While many factors contribute to these disparities, implicit bias may play a significant role. Stigmatizing language often reflects the implicit bias that healthcare providers possess toward patients (2). Recent research [...]

Background: Disparities in health outcomes that differ by racial or ethnic group, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, age, mental health, ability, sexual orientation or gender identity, geographic location, or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion demonstrate that equitable care in the United States is a goal that has not been achieved. Treating all patients [...]

Background: Stigmatizing language in clinical notes can negatively impact physician attitudes, propagate bias, affect prescribing behaviors, and exacerbate healthcare disparities, yet remains prevalent even in the Open Notes era. Prior analyses of stigmatizing terms in clinical notes are limited by the lack of context in which terms are used and multiple meanings of certain words [...]

Background: Efforts to advance health equity in the outpatient setting include routine screening for social determinants of health, expanded access to addiction treatment, and addressing pharmaco-equity. However, the question of how to advance health equity for patients who are hospitalized has been underexplored. We sought to understand hospitalists’ perspectives on health equity needs and innovations. [...]

Background: Patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) face multiple barriers to care and are at risk for worse health outcomes compared to similar patients with English Proficiency (EP). In sepsis, a common diagnosis and major cause of mortality in the US, the association of LEP with health outcomes has not been widely explored. We aimed [...]

Background: Growth faltering or failure to thrive is a common cause of admission in infancy and early childhood. In the United States, approximately 2-10% of children experience lower-than-expected growth associated with malnutrition (Tang et al). Growth faltering accounts for 3-5% of pediatric hospitalizations (Mazze et al, 2019). Malnutrition is associated with complications of increased risk [...]

Background: Regionalization of pediatric healthcare has led to an increased proportion of hospitalizations at tertiary care centers and freestanding children’s hospitals. For some of these patients, transfer from another hospital is required to access inpatient care. There are known disparities in access to care for historically marginalized races/ethnicities, but it is unclear if these disparities [...]

Background: Patient portals are a digital health technology that help caregivers engage with their child’s healthcare. Unfortunately, significant disparities in portal use exist, with caregivers who speak languages other than English (LOE) having lower usage rates compared with their English-speaking counterparts. No pediatric study has sought to understand why and how LOE caregivers use patient [...]