Summary
Unbeknown to most patients, their race is incorporated into numerous medical decision-making tools and formulas that doctors consult to decide treatment for a range of conditions and services, including heart disease, cancer and maternity care, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The unintended result, the paper concludes, has been to direct medical resources away from black patients and to deny some black patients treatment options available to white patients.
The tools are often digital calculators on websites of medical organizations or — in the case of assessing kidney function — actually built into the tools commercial labs use to calculate normal values of blood tests. They assess risk and potential outcomes based on formulas derived from population studies and modeling that looked for variables associated with different outcomes.
Analysis
The article discusses the problems with some online medical calculators that help people determine whether they need/get treatment. The results have shown that more black people end up not being treated whereas white people under the same conditions receive help. Some people believe these calculators were aimed with a bias towards empiricism not racist, but nonetheless a problem. Although race is a much larger problem to challenged me to think about how different tools can affect how a job is done. For no-military first responders the tools they have at the hospital or their office may very much vary from those given during an MCI. If these tools are too different is a medical responder not able to properly do their job, or only do it to a certain extent. In addition, the people within the military that have to use medical tools in a dire situation, are they able to tell what these tools are used for. Is the common person or someone with no knowledge able to be beneficial in some capacity that allows them to help other people. So, this article helped me to think about problem that may stem from tools and utilities that may or may not work for anyone involved.
