This is the first study to formally document the frequency of reference to a patient's cultural heritage during medical handover and in a hospital's medical records. The study was conducted by a research team led by Dr David Morgan of Perth's South Metropolitan Health Services.
In this study, the research team observed handovers in an acute care unit of a Western Australian hospital and analyzed the electronic medical records for references to nationality, ethnicity or religion.
The study revealed that identifying a patient's cultural heritage - including nationality, ethnicity and religion - is done inconsistently by doctors when transferring clinical information.
The research team also concluded that Aboriginal patients are significantly more likely to be identified than patients from all other ethnic-national backgrounds, with 46 per cent of Aboriginal patients having their cultural heritage mentioned.
