Screening Question on Discrimination for Inpatient Palliative Care Consults

Summary

Systemic discrimination as a problem within the health care system is already known. The role of a palliative care provider is to identify and alleviate distress in patients with serious illness, though discrimination is not a standard part of the palliative care or medical assessments. Spurred by the murder of George Floyd, NYU Langone Health’s inpatient Palliative Care team sought to address this gap in understanding and practice. Through several iterations, their workgroup added a mandatory screening question to the initial consult: “During previous medical encounters have you ever felt that you were treated differently from other patients for any reason?” Their goal was to elicit patients’ perceptions or experiences of inequalities in any health care system, and provide therapeutic presence and listening. The lack of research in this area makes this quality improvement project necessary for the advancement of our understanding of and improvement in medical inequities.