Piloting and scaling a good health equity evidence base from big data

Abstract

Eliminating racial inequity in health outcomes has historically been complicated by a lack of clear methods to quantify the problems and study interventions’ effects. Health care organizations’ investment in electronic health record systems for millions of patients, however, presents opportunities to use data to research health inequity and respond to it. One health system’s development and validation of a measure to identify and quantify outcomes inequity across patient groups demonstrates an approach that could be nationally scalable.