When somebody needs a kidney transplant and they don't have a matching donor lined up, they join a waiting list.

We understand those lists might prioritize people depending on the state of their health.

But it doesn't seem

right that among the criteria that might play into when or even if someone ever qualifies for

a donated organ is the color of their skin. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. What is

especially insidious about disparities in outcomes based on a patient's racial identity

is that they can happen regardless of whether the professionals caring for those patients hold racist beliefs.

Often they are baked into diagnostic formulas designed to help physicians choose the proper course of treatment,

literally taught to young doctors in

training, and now perpetuated potentially by algorithms that were supposed to lead to better

care, including sparing patients unnecessary treatments.

Journalist Katie Palmer has been looking into this for Stat News, where she's a health

tech correspondent. Her series, written in collaboration with

National Science Correspondent Ushali McFarling, is called Embedded Bias. Katie, welcome to think.

Thanks, Chris. Let's start with something that sounds like it would be a relatively routine thing

to diagnose, which is urinary tract infections in children. Doctors at some hospitals use these like mathematical formulas to work in some ways, I guess,

like a magazine quiz, right, at a point for this, subtract a point for that.

And a particular numerical score suggests a certain standard of care.

Will you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure. I mean, for several years, starting in 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics has included

race as part of its guidelines for treating urinary tracts, sorry, not treating, but diagnosing

urinary tract infections, and really the youngest children. These are kids under two. And these are

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