Advancing health equity in patient safety: a reckoning, challenge and opportunity
Marshall H. Chin
Abstract
COVID-19 and police brutality have simultaneously heightened public awareness of disparities in health outcomes by race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status, and the underlying structural drivers of systemic racism and social privilege in the USA.1 2 Increasingly major professional associations such as the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, and Association of American Medical Colleges are decrying racism and inequities, and many individual healthcare organisations are committing to addressing health disparities. Hospitals, clinics and health plans are looking inwards to identify organisational biases and discrimination, and developing outward interventions to advance health equity for their patients. Looking in the mirror honestly takes courage; frequently the discoveries and self-insights are troubling.3 At their best, discussions about racism and inequities are challenging.4 Within the quality of care field, disparities in patient safety are relatively understudied.5 6 Thus, Schulson et al ’s study in this issue of BMJ Quality and Safety, finding that voluntary incident reporting systems may underdetect safety issues in marginalised populations, is an important sentinel event.7 Implicit bias in providers and structural bias in safety reporting systems might explain this underdetection of problems. In this editorial, I summarise the practical lessons for advancing health equity sustainably, with the hope of accelerating equity in patient safety. I present a framework for advancing health equity, describe common pitfalls and apply the framework to patient safety to inform research and policy recommendations. The wider health disparities field has been criticised for spending too many years describing the phenomenon of inequities before emphasising interventions and solutions. The patient safety field should move faster, incorporating major advances that have occurred regarding how to reduce health disparities.8 9 While equity issues in patient safety have been understudied, the principles for successfully advancing health equity align well with the culture and toolkit …