Study: Minority clinics “chaotic and crowded”

Health clinics that serve a sizeable number of minority patients tend to suffer from terrible work conditions according to a study released earlier this month.

Researchers examined data from 96 primary care clinics in New York and in the upper Midwest; 27 of which had a minimum 30% minority patients. The conditions in those health centers compounds the health care problems encountered by minorities in the U.S.

A combination of "time pressure, insufficient resources and patients with complex problems likely constitutes a 'perfect storm' that contributes to the challenges that physicians face in providing quality care to large proportions of minority patients," said Dr. Anita Varkey and colleagues at Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, Illinois.

Varkey said the study did not turn up a root cause of the problem, although geography and funding cannot be ruled out.

"We can say that the challenges are measurably different from clinics serving lower proportions of minority patients," she said in a telephone interview.

The findings published in the Archives of Internal Medicine also found that clinics serving at least 30% minority patients are more likely to have patients less proficient in English and are more likely to be covered by Medicaid.

Image- Marketplace
Online Sources- Archives of Internal Medicine, Reuters, U.S. News and World Report