An analysis of 1.5 million inpatient procedures revealed that Black patients are 42 percent more likely to die following surgery than white patients. The same is true for Hispanic patients, who are 21 percent more likely than white patients to die after surgery.
Even working toward a 2 percent reduction could result in preventing 3,000 post-surgery deaths for Black patients in the next decade, according to researchers.
“This study represents the first effort to move beyond merely documenting the ongoing disparities in surgical outcomes in the U.S. by quantifying the aggregate human toll of these disparities,” Christian Mpody, MD, PhD, the lead author of the study stated in an Oct. 15 news release. “We should not become used to reading statistics about people dying.”
