Christopher T Rentsch, Moneeza K Siddiqui, Rohini Mathur
{"title":"What Are High-Quality Race and Ethnicity Data and How Are They Used in Health Equity Research?","authors":"Christopher T Rentsch, Moneeza K Siddiqui, Rohini Mathur","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.34","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.34","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic changed public awareness of the importance of high-quality race and ethnicity data for identifying and redressing widely documented racial and ethnic health inequity. This article emphasizes the importance of high-quality race and ethnicity data in health equity research, as highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The article defines what constitutes high-quality race and ethnicity data, discusses challenges in using these data, and provides 2 cases that illustrate the role of these data in identifying and redressing health inequity. Finally, this article advocates for the use of accurate, standardized, and granular data and highlights the need for community engagement and trust building to improve data quality and research outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 1","pages":"E34-43"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142923773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Right In the Eye.","authors":"Kayla Mackenzie McCormick","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.64","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2025.64","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This illustration represents how a patient's view of themselves can be altered while going through iatrogenic trauma.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 1","pages":"E64-65"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142923772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Which Values Should Guide Evidence-Based Practice?","authors":"Amber Comer","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.21","DOIUrl":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.21","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article draws on opinions in the AMA Code of Medical Ethics and applies them to evidence-based practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 1","pages":"21-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143123848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Whom Should We Regard as Responsible for Health Record Inaccuracies That Hinder Population-Based Fact Finding?","authors":"Kathleen M Akgün, Shelli L Feder","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2025.6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Electronic health records (EHRs) have revolutionized the scale, speed, and granularity at which health data can be collated and summarized for epidemiologic purposes. However, population-level analyses of patient-level data are only as reliable as the accuracy or completeness of patient reporting, clinician data entry, and how systems are programmed. This commentary on a case argues that responsibility for the validity of EHR data should be shared among key stakeholders, including patients. This commentary also proposes models for EHR data inquiry, data entry, and review processes that incorporate roles of community partners, frontline clinicians, and health science experts.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 1","pages":"E6-13"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142922214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Should Clinicians Know About How Coding Influences Epidemiological Research?","authors":"Jennifer Quint, Alex Brownrigg","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2025.51","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2025.51","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Coded health care data from patients' health records are used in epidemiological research, especially on incidence or prevalence of disease; for drug safety monitoring or long-term cohort tracking; and to inform policy making. This article briefly summarizes the evolution of internationally recognized coding ontologies and nomenclature and describes applications of coded electronic health record (EHR) data in day-to-day health care operations, research, auditing, and policy development. This article also illuminates how errors can occur when EHR information is coded, considers errors' consequences, and suggests strategies for mitigating errors and improving overall use of coded EHR data.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"27 1","pages":"E51-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142922062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hospital Design Standards and the AMA.","authors":"Jorie Braunold","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2024.963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2024.963","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The establishment of the American Medical Association in 1847 launched medical practice standardization in the United States. Consensus on standards was hard won, however, and implementation was not immediate. Hospital design standards, specifically, were debated for decades and were ultimately ceded to nurses and architects. This article describes key moments along that trajectory.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"26 12","pages":"E963-969"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142808045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Which Values Should Guide Health Care Organizations' Retrofit Expenditures on Patient-Centered and Evidence-Based Design?","authors":"Ellen Taylor","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2024.916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2024.916","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When built environments in health care result from an evidence-based design (EBD) process, they are interventions that can improve patients' health outcomes. This commentary on a case discusses which ethical values should guide organizations' capital expenditure decisions about retrofits, which might be more costly than the original budget. This discussion urges reevaluation of the common assumption that capital improvements are \"sunk costs,\" since such improvements can promote long-term positive health outcomes for an organization's patients, thereby advancing both financial value and ethical values. This commentary also suggests that EBD offers key interventions that are clinically and ethically relevant.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"26 12","pages":"E916-924"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142808084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who Should Contribute to Decisions About Health Care Space Design?","authors":"Diana C Anderson, Stowe Locke Teti","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2024.901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2024.901","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This commentary on a case considers how and by whom decisions about health care structures and spaces should be made and suggests merits and drawbacks of shared decision-making as one approach to Certificate of Need assessments.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"26 12","pages":"E901-908"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142808087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Should We Respond to Spatial Injustice in Health Care Organizations?","authors":"Ian M Johnson","doi":"10.1001/amajethics.2024.909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2024.909","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hostile design is a built environment strategy to discourage unwanted behaviors or limit use by unwanted users in a space. This commentary on a case identifies how hostile design choices perpetuate spatial injustice in both health care settings and the surrounding community and argues that health care organizations have duties to mitigate adverse health consequences of such spatial injustices. This commentary then describes strategies for identifying overt and covert hostile design of health care spaces and proposes future practices and translational research to make health care environments' designs accessible, approachable, and more just.</p>","PeriodicalId":38034,"journal":{"name":"AMA journal of ethics","volume":"26 12","pages":"E909-915"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142808069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}