How race made its way into clinical algorithms: A video explainer

Algorithms are ubiquitous in medicine. They can take the form of a flowchart, a simple equation, or a complicated AI model, and are used to help clinicians diagnose diseases, predict the chances of survival, and determine if a patient is eligible for certain treatments. Many of these algorithms take a person’s race into account. For example, if the person is Black, a clinician may add or subtract a point from the patient’s score, which can affect their treatment.

Many in the medical community are starting to reconsider the use of race in the algorithms, and finding that in some cases, race-based calculators have delayed or prevented people from getting the right diagnoses and accessing appropriate care.

Watch this video to learn more about the history of race-based algorithms and why clinicians across different specialties are re-examining algorithms they have used for years.