Objective: To determine whether racial disparities occurred among specialty and allied health inpatient consultations for patients admitted to adult hospital services at an academic hospital.
Methods: A retrospective data analysis of the first 2000 patients, ages 18 years or older, admitted to an academic hospital.
Results: No regression model demonstrated any statistically significant relation between race and type of inpatient consultation received. No statistically significant difference in the number of inpatient consultations was found.
Conclusions: Processes within the healthcare setting studied did not contribute to racial differences in consultation services. Our findings suggest that implicit racial bias may not be a factor when ordering consultations, but the findings are more likely affected by more appropriate factors such as the patient's age, length of stay, and complexity/severity of illness score.