Do Hospitals Provide Lower-Quality Care To Minorities Than To Whites?

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Abstract
Using three years of state inpatient discharge data from thirteen states, we computed, for each hospital, race/ethnicity–specific quality measures using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality inpatient quality indicators and patient safety indicators. We found that risk-adjusted quality indicators for blacks, Hispanics, and Asians were not statistically worse than corresponding quality indicators for whites in the same hospital. We conclude that when whites and minorities are admitted to the hospital for the same reason or receive the same hospital procedure, they receive the same quality of care. Only a few hospitals provide lower quality of care to minorities than to whites.