Disparities seen in documentation rates based on race and ethnicity, rurality, history of mental health disability<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b><\/p>\n
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WEDNESDAY, Dec. 20, 2023 (HealthDay News) — For a cohort of veterans, disparities in preoperative life-sustaining treatment (LST) documentation rates persist based on race and ethnicity, rurality of residence, and history of mental health disability, according to a study published online Dec. 19 in JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\n Adela Wu, M.D., from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study using data from the Veterans Healthcare Administration involving 229,737 veterans who underwent surgical procedures to examine the association of patient- and system-level factors with preoperative LST note documentation or no LST note documentation within 30 days prior to or on the day of surgery.<\/p>\n The researchers found that 5.8 percent of patients who received surgery completed preoperative LST. Patients who were female, those who were Black or Hispanic, or those from rural areas; those with a history of mental disability; and those who were seen at lowest-complexity facilities tended to complete preoperative documentation less often. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, patients undergoing surgical procedures completed preoperative LST increasingly more often over time. Patients of racial or ethnic-minority background and patients from rural regions had lower likelihoods of completing LST compared with White or non-Hispanic patients and those from urban areas in covariate-adjusted analyses. The likelihood of completing preoperative LST was also lower for patients with any history of mental health disability.<\/p>\n “Our study reinforces the persistence of racial and ethnic disparities and highlights other patient-level gaps in goals of care documentation for the surgical patient population,” the authors write.<\/p>\n