As far as a variety of non-emergency procedures and conditions are concerned, racial disparities still exist. This is probably due to the over use or under use of services, patient preferences or access to care. A recent medical study on racial differences has attempted to analyze those factors out of equation.

When a patient suffers a cardiac arrest the hospital staff needs to immediately make attempts to resuscitate him.

Dr. Paul Chan of Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and his colleagues felt that when a patient's heart stops functioning, the in-hospital emergency events provided a unique opportunity to look at the difference of attention provided to a black patient and a white one.

"Some hospitals are better performers when it comes to resuscitating and providing the best possible care for patients with cardiac arrest than other hospitals, and these differences seem to disproportionately affect patients who are black", says Chan.

They studied the survival rates of over 10,000 patients within a standardized national registry who required CPR or defibrillation after an in-hospital heart attack.

Slightly more than 25% survival rate to hospital discharge was seen in black patients as compared to 37% white patients who survived. The gap narrowed after the researchers carefully took into consideration the hospital where the treatment was received.

They concluded that improving the quality of resuscitation and post-resuscitation care in these hospitals could further reduce the difference between the survival rates of black and white patients.