Many of your employees are at risk of receiving unequal medical treatment based on their cultural characteristics—who they are. Women. African Americans. Latinx employees. Research has shown that members of the GLBTQI and other communities receive a lower quality of care than their straight, White, male counterparts. As an employer, this means that though you are paying for equal treatment, many of your employees are being shortchanged based on unconscious bias.
Studies of inequalities in health care have documented 13 groups of patients who receive disparate care. Disparities are partly due to socioeconomic factors. However, non-socioeconomic factors also play a large contributory role.
This unfair treatment stems from the same unconscious biases that all of us have. Try the Implicit Attitude Test to get a sense of your own unconscious biases. The White-BST Caregiver Paper contains 18 specific recommendations that clinicians can apply in their practices, using their own judgment, to reduce the impact of their unconscious biases. This will lead to better care for all patients.
Employers are in a unique role to collaborate with clinicians, healthcare provider organizations, health insurers, and others to assure that training based on these practices is implemented. Further, it is vital that the impact of these practices be evaluated and improved over time. Your workforce will become more diverse over the next years and decades. Therefore, investing in this work to address unconscious bias will likewise become more important over time.
