ENA Emergency Severity Index racial bias
June 2021
Updated: October 2021
STAT reports that a number of healthcare delivery and planning algorithms widely used across the US are actively reinforcing existing racial and economic biases.
Researchers at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business' Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence assessed (pdf) algorithms that help emergency rooms triage patients and predict diabetes, amongst other uses.
The researchers single out The Emergency Nurses Association (ENA)'s Emergency Severity Index, which is found to underestimate the severity of Black peoples' problems and sugggest they are sicker than they are.
Operator: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; Emergency Nurses Association (ENA)
Developer: Emergency Nurses Association (ENA)
Country: USA
Sector: Health
Purpose: Assess medical condition
Technology: Triage algorithm
Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Bias/discrimination - race, economy
Opacity: Black box