Joel Bervell: Messages like this are my reminder of how important it is to create content about healthcare disparities and how powerful spreading accurate information via social media can be.

Quoting Joel Bervell, Host of The Dose podcast with The Commonwealth Fund, on LinkedIn:

“Messages like this are my reminder of how important it is to create content about healthcare disparities and how powerful spreading accurate information via social media can be.

In the United States, a patient’s race used to be taken into account in the evaluation of their kidney disease. For Black patients, a multiplier was added to the estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate that increased a patient’s eGFR.

Studies showed that the calculation potentially overestimated eGFR in some patients, making it less likely for treatments to be recommended to Black patients as compared non-Black patients. One study estimated that 3.3 million more Black Americans would have been diagnosed with a higher stage of chronic kidney disease.

Thankfully, a new equation has now been created and as of January 2023 if you were a Black patient that had the race-adjusted GFR equation, you have the potential to now have your wait-time adjusted.”

Source: Joel Bervell/LinkedIn.