Race differences in reported harmful patient safety events in healthcare system high reliability organizations.
Racial disparities in patient safety are understudied. This analysis of voluntary safety reports at a health system encompassing 10 hospitals found that a higher than expected proportion of white patients were identified in safety reports overall, and that the types of reports differed significantly for white, black, and patients of other races. The authors raise the question of whether reporting bias by race occurs in patient safety reporting and call for further study.