Twelve Philadelphia-area health systems joined forces with Independence Blue Cross to take action against racial bias in medicine.
The Regional Coalition to Eliminate Race-Based Medicine, convened by Independence Blue Cross, aims to remove race adjustments from 15 commonly-used clinical decision support tools from UTI calculation guidelines to heart failure risk scores. It also plans to collaborate on alternatives which "do not reinforce a biological understanding of race," according to a news release shared with Becker's.
"The health care system has a legacy of treating race as a biological fact, rather than a social construct," Seun Ross, DNP, executive director of health equity at Independence Blue Cross said in the release. "As a result, race has inappropriately become a component of many clinical decision tools in use today. We need to address it now so that all patients, no matter their background, have the best possible health outcomes."
The following 12 health systems will participate:
1. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
2. Doylestown (Pa.) Health
3. Grand View Health (Sellersville, Pa.)
4. Jefferson Health (Philadelphia)
5. Main Line Health (Radnor Township, Pa.)
6. Nemours Children's Health (Wilmington, Del.)
7. Penn Medicine (Philadelphia)
8. Redeemer Health (Meadowbrook, Pa.)
9. St. Christopher's Hospital for Children (Philadelphia)
10. Temple Health (Philadelphia)
11. Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic (Newtown Square, Pa.)
12. Virtua Health (Marlton, N.J.)