nyc surgical disparities

A recent, unsurprising study indicates minority (that is to say, nonwhite) patients are less likely to go to "high-volume hospitals", in which the certain procedures are done very frequently, than white patients.

The Yale study (I was unable to find a link directly to it) reviewed the cases of 133,821 patients in NYC who underwent one of ten procedures in between 2001 and 2004. The procedures were varied: some CV, some ortho, and some oncology. The procedures selected were ones for which published evidence indicates that going to a high volume hospital lowers patients' short term risk of death. Approximately 75% of the patients studied where white, and the remainder were black (13.1%), Hispanic (8.4%), and Asian (3.2%). For all ten procedures, according to eScience News, white people were more likely to be treated at high-volume hospitals than any other ethnic group.

Often, geography is blamed as a barrier for minority access to world class care, although the study deliberately attempted to control for this by including only hospitals in NYC. Study authors speculate one reason minority patients might be less inclined to high volume hospitals is "racial/ethnic differences in access to or use of information about provider quality" as quoted in the article linked to above.

PS Yes, I know it's ironic to refer to non-whites as minorities since they make up the majority of NYC.