Sansum Health Clinic implemented a new policy this month that requires asking for patients’ ethnicities during check-in. As part of President Obama’s Health Information Technology for Economic Clinical Health Act, the information is needed for transferring to electronic charts, according to a Sansum patient liaison. The ethnicity inquiry appears as a box on patient paperwork—just as seen on census forms, the liaison said—and is used for statistical information. Patients are not required to answer. Cottage Hospital has not implemented such a policy, according to spokesperson Janet O’Neill.
