Healthcare providers and patients alike receive their fair share of inappropriate racial comments or racist behavior, though a new analysis of race-related patient safety incidents suggest the former experience the majority of those incidents.
Fifty-seven percent of racial patient safety incidents within a sample of over 500 events were related to a patient or their family members’ inappropriate racial comments or behaviors, ECRI reported this week.
At the same time, 42% of the incidents reported during a full year were committed by healthcare staff, according to the nonprofit healthcare and healthcare technology safety organization.
“As health systems implement diversity, equity and inclusion plans, the needs of providers of color must be taken into account, as well as those of patients,” Marcus Schabacker, M.D., president and CEO of ECRI, said in a statement. “Creating an equitable and safe environment requires recognizing when racist incidents occur and taking action in response.”
ECRI’s analysis broke down the race-related patient safety reports into seven categories; chief among these were patient or family comments toward staff (56%) and patients’ claims of racism (22%).
Also of note were patients or families claiming they received disparate care due to their race or ethnicity (9%), reports that staff had made inappropriate comments (7%) and staff reporting that management or a supervisor had discriminated against them (4%).
ECRI warned race-related safety incidents such as these can harm providers’ mental health, which for many is already in dire straits since the beginning of the pandemic.
That, in turn, could drive providers and other staff to leave the industry and worsen the staffing shortage gripping hospitals and health systems.
“More needs to be done,” Dheerendra Kommala, M.D., ECRI’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. “ECRI is working with healthcare institutions to set up organizational procedures to identify, report and resolve these issues.”
ECRI has previously highlighted racial and ethnic disparities within care and stressed the need for organizations to improve their understanding and detection of disparities in order to develop effective interventions.
The group named racial and ethnic disparities as its top patient safety concern back in 2021. Staffing shortages took the top spot in 2022.