Taking aim at racial disparities in health, hospitals put a shared decision-making tool to the test

Modern Healthcare—August 29, 2016

Modern Healthcare writer Elizabeth Whitman reports on a recent clinical trial that is being launched to test how the use of a shared decision-making tool affects the way minority patients decide on treatment for knee pain. The study is aimed at African Americans and Latinos who have been defined as being impacted by healthcare disparities.

According to Michael L. Parks, MD, a hip and knee surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery who is leading the study, "If we engage the patient, can we improve their experience and their care? By doing this, maybe we can move the needle on disparities."

Dr. Parks also attributes race and social factors, like living in poverty or in a food desert, can "create a vicious cycle that feeds back on underutilization of care, and perhaps poor outcomes in joint replacement surgery."

This study originally appeared at ModernHealthcare.com.