The study suggests that discrimination in health care may also extend to responses on patient portals

Black Americans have long struggled to gain equitable and effective access to health care, according to a brand new study published in: JAMA network open indicates that the difficulty is with patient portals.

According to CBS Newsresearchers analyzed responses to patient portal messages from greater than 39,000 Boston Medical Center patients in 2021, including the form of health care experts who responded and the speed at which they responded to requests for medical advice.

“When racial and ethnic minority patients sent these messages, they were similarly likely to receive a response from their care team,” the authors noted. in their findings“but the health care workers who responded were different.”

Black patients experienced response rates from attending physicians that were almost 4 percentage points lower and response rates from registered nurses that were roughly 3 percentage points higher. The authors observed comparable but more minor differences for Asian and Hispanic patients.

The study suggests several explanations for this phenomenon, including the content of the message, implicit bias and physician time constraints.

Researchers expressed concern that messages from minority patients “are less likely to be prioritized in physician response” because triage nurses typically review patients’ emails before anyone else.

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According to the authors, patients’ “health literacy” — which is addressed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as the extent to which individuals can “find, understand and use information and services to make health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others” – may also play a task.

Developments in healthcare technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), have the potential to improve care. Still, some experts fear the brand new systems could reinforce racial biases that have long continued in medicine.

“Our system in America is not built to serve everyone equally,” Dr. Leigh-Ann Webb, an assistant professor of emergency medicine on the University of Virginia, previously told CBS, “and the health care system is not immune to this.”