Optimizing Patient Care and Health Care Equity Through Accurate Data Collection

One of the main goals of our nation’s Healthy People 2030 initiative is to eliminate health care disparities. In a 2003 report,¹  the Institute of Medicine underscores that these disparities are linked to poorer outcomes; it identifies health care systems, health care professionals, and patients themselves as sources of these disparities. One effective way to address this issue involves ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the data collection and the diligence of clinicians in documenting patients’ demographic data in the electronic medical record (EMR). In the accompanying study, Colbert et al report that note writers mentioned the patient’s self-reported race or ethnicity for 20.8% of Black patients, 10.9% of Latinx patients, 9.1% of White patients, and 4.4% of patients of Asian descent. Demographic data collected in the EMR may include sex assigned at birth, gender identity and sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, primary language, preferred spoken and written language or...