New York City-based Mount Sinai islaunchinga study of 15 million ambulatory patient cases to determine how segregation of healthcare affects patient outcomes.
Researchers from the health system's Institute for Health Equity Research received $2.5 million from the National Institutes of Health to conduct the study. They will analyze clinical data from five academic medical centers in New York City with the goal of crafting a "blueprint" health systems can use to reduce disparities, according to a Nov. 14 news release from Mount Sinai.
"Even though practice segregation has existed in our healthcare system for centuries, and even though it is deeply intertwined in patient care and medical education, it remains poorly understood," Lynne Richardson, MD, co-lead on the study and professor of emergency medicine and health equity science at Icahn Mount Sinai, said in the release.
"Long-term success will require that academic medical centers and hospitals across the country dig into this problem. And we will need legislative and regulatory change, too. All of this will take time and collaboration."