Race-based algorithms to guide care are difficult to change

Race-based algorithms are still used widely across medicine to guide clinical care, even though growing numbers of clinicians, researchers and health care leaders contend it is problematic to consider people of different races as biologically different and to incorporate those outdated beliefs into clinical tools. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have identified at least 40 clinical algorithms that still include race adjustments, and they can perpetuate bias and may harm patients of color. In the U.S.’s fragmented health system, it can be difficult to eliminate race-based algorithms uniformly, even if some health systems do. Often, volunteer medical trainees are taking on the work. There also is no way to enforce standards of how clinicians or researchers use race. (Stat article, 9/3/24)