Does portal writing style contribute to disparities in clinician response?

Message length, punctuation, and clinician greetings were associated with intended clinician response.

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The study analyzed 3.6 million patient-initiated messages to assess disparities in clinician response based on writing style and content.
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Black patients had a 3.7-percentage point lower response rate from target clinicians compared to White patients, indicating a significant disparity.
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Writing style accounted for 48% of the target clinician response gap among Black patients, highlighting its influence over response differences.
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Characteristics such as using the clinician's name, positive sentiment, and message length were associated with higher response rates.
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The study's limitations include its single health system data source and the inability to capture all aspects of message content or writing style.

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