Doylestown Health has joined a regional coalition with the goal of ending race-based medicine in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs.
The area’s leading healthcare facilities are part of the newly formed Regional Coalition to Eliminate Race-Based Medicine, organized under the guidance of insurance giant Independence Blue Cross, the coalition recently announced.
In addition to Doylestown Health, the coalition includes: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Grand View Health; Jefferson Health; Main Line Health; Nemours Children’s Health; Penn Medicine; Redeemer Health; St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children; Temple Health; Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, which operates St. Mary Medical Center; and Virtua Health.
“Clinical guidelines and clinical decision tools help doctors determine the best way to care for their patients. Race is, in some cases, still used as one of the variables in those tools even though it is not an objective biological trait,” the Regional Coalition said in a statement. “Using race as a variable can adversely influence the care a patient receives. It can also impact their outcomes.”
For example, the spirometry test, used to assess a patient’s lung function, often incorporates race into its interpretation of test results, assuming Black and Asian patients have a smaller lung capacity compared to white patients. The result, the coalition said, is “the test has failed to detect lung disease in many Black and Asian patients.”
Jefferson Health’s Dwight W. McBee, who serves as executive vice president and chief experience officer, said Jefferson’s transitioning to a race-neutral estimation of kidney function has resulted in more than 100 Black patients newly eligible for transplant.
“The use of race to determine the course of treatment has gone unchallenged for far too long,” McBee said in a statement.
The coalition is initially focusing on 15 clinical decision tools:
• Arteriosclerosis and Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) Risk Estimator
• Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium Risk Calculator
• Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR)
• Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX)
• Heart Failure Risk Score
• Kidney Donor Risk Index (KDRI)
• NCI Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool
• Osteoporosis Risk SCORE
• Pulmonary-function tests/Spirometry
• Race-based Anemia Guidelines
• Rectal Cancer Survival Calculator
• Society of Thoracic Surgeons Short Term Risk Calculator
• Urology STONE Score
• UTI Calculation Guideline
• Vaginal Birth after Cesarean (VBAC) Calculator
Accelerate Health Equity, an organization that many of the coalition members are also part of, has been working to confront racism and obstacles in healthcare in the region, as well.
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