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A perspective paper published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association outlined barriers to health equity research serving deaf and hard-of-hearing patients, and how EHRs may be making such barriers worse.
Although EHR systems can be useful when it comes to identifying health inequities, researchers noted that they may also be interfering with efforts to improve health outcomes among deaf and hard-of-hearing American Sign Language (ASL) users.
“Due to communication barriers and discrimination, DHH ASL-users experience deleterious social determinants of health and a myriad of health inequities when compared to non-DHH English-speaking patients including poorer health literacy, worse preventive screening outcomes, and higher rates of substance use,” explained researchers.