A new University of Pennsylvania study reveals troubling disparities in how clinical teams communicate when caring for Black maternity patients. Researchers analyzed hospital incident reports from women’s health units at a large urban health center between 2019 and 2022, finding that Black women represented 28% of births but were the subject of 38% of incident reports.
Most communication failures occurred within clinical teams rather than between providers and patients. This means healthcare professionals weren’t effectively sharing critical information with each other while caring for Black mothers. The most common problems involved omission failures, such as missing crucial details about a patient’s health history.
The study identified four areas where communication broke down: contextual failures like not reporting blood pressure changes after delivery, conceptual failures such as not following epidural protocols, sociotechnical failures involving workflow issues, and equity concerns where women felt forced to leave the hospital early without proper support.
Lead researcher Rebecca Clark noted that Black women were overrepresented in incident reports involving communication failures, while White women were more often featured in reports highlighting positive communication. The findings suggest that bias may be influencing how healthcare teams communicate about patients from vulnerable communities.
Researchers recommend regular policy reviews, simulation training for emergency situations, and standardized clinical procedures to address these disparities. The study emphasizes that improving communication within healthcare teams, rather than just between providers and patients, could help achieve more equitable maternal care.
See: “Black Maternity Patients More Likely to Experience Clinical Communications Failures” (June 11, 2025)
