How a Diverse Hospital Staff Enhances Patient Safety and Care

No doctor or nurse wants or expects bad outcomes for their patients. And yet bad outcomes are what an alarming number of minority patients have come to expect. It is a long-established fact that black women in particular have significantly worse experiences with the American healthcare system than any other segment of the population.

They experience death during childbirth at a higher rate than any other group in a developed nation, and they generally report feeling that their concerns are not being taken seriously by their doctors and nurses.

What is happening here? Are thousands of doctors and nurses conspiring to treat certain groups poorly? 

No. The issue is primarily communication-related. Studies indicate that people often struggle to fully understand people who come from backgrounds different than their own. In healthcare, this lack of understanding is often fatal. 

In this article, we take a look at how diversifying hospitals can have a life-saving impact on patient safety.

Patient Confidence

On the most basic level, patients feel more comfortable when they can relate to the people who are providing them care. It’s not right to assume that a black patient and a black nurse will have had the same life experience, of course. 

It is more reasonable to assume that they have some experiential overlap. At the most basic level, they at least both live the experience of being black in America—something that a white doctor or nurse simply cannot understand. 

Is that the topic of conversation when a minority care provider walks into the hospital room of a minority patient? Of course not. But simply having a bit of common ground can be enough to make someone feel more comfortable during an uncomfortable time. 

Communication

We described in the introduction how communication is often complicated between people of different backgrounds. Generally, these differences are subtle and difficult to detect at the conscious level. 

It might be culturally specific phrases. It could also just be body language.

When it comes to interacting with someone on a personal level, these discrepancies might not amount to much. In healthcare, they can be highly influential. 

Unconscious Bias

It’s been said that unconscious bias also influences healthcare outcomes amongst minority patients. This, admittedly, is an uncomfortable topic of conversation. It suggests that doctors and nurses, without meaning to, are providing minorities with lower-quality care because they are minorities. 

In these cases, the suggestion is not that majority group healthcare providers want minorities to suffer, but rather that they do not take their input as seriously as they might an upper-middle-class white woman. 

Often, complaints of unconscious bias are accompanied by an intersection of considerations. It is not merely minority groups who experience disproportionately bad outcomes but people of a lower socio-economic status. 

This perhaps reinforces the idea that doctors and nurses struggle to relate to people who do not share their personal experience. 

A doctor exhibiting unconscious bias may not actively think that a black female patient does not know what she is talking about. They may, however, process certain dialects as indicating a lower level of education. This, in turn, may lead them to lean more heavily on their own assumptions and expectations. 

This, of course, is still an uncomfortable possibility. No one wants to live in a world where doctors and nurses only take people seriously if they think they have enough schooling. Even in cases of unconscious bias, it is important to remember the operative term: unconscious. 

Healthcare workers usually have to make fast decisions. Like anyone forced to think quickly, they use mental shortcuts to reach their determinations. This does not justify unconscious bias. It does help explain it. Sensitivity training can help alleviate the issue. Diversifying hospital staff is a sustainable long-term solution to the problem. 

More Ideas in Circulation

Diversity in any organization also ensures a wider range of ideas. It is consistently shown that businesses with diverse leadership outperform businesses with a racially monolithic c-suite. Of course, there is no such thing as “white ideas,” “black ideas,” or “Hispanic ideas.” 

However, a person’s background does influence the way that they think. Having different perspectives helps improve a hospital’s ability to equitably service the wider population of a diverse country. 

Another Thing to Keep in Mind

Diversity and healthcare isn’t only about improving patient outcomes. Obviously, that’s an enormous benefit. However, you should also keep in mind that healthcare jobs tend to have higher paying salaries than other careers. Currently, most of those jobs are going to white Americans. Meanwhile, the wealth gap between majority and minority group members remains intact and in fact, grows in some places. 

While diversifying healthcare won’t cure that problem it can certainly soothe it. Diversifying hospitals begins by rethinking how we recruit healthcare workers while they are still in high school.

Are guidance counselors recommending black students check out medical programs? What are universities doing to make sure minority applicants feel like they will find acceptance within their healthcare programs?

Even small things can make a difference. Are all of the students in the promotional materials white? This can send a subtle but impactful message to minority applicants.

DEI boards have been shown to help alleviate this problem. Diversity equity and inclusion groups often work with organizations to review their materials and policies to ensure that everyone feels welcome.

Small steps can have a major impact on the lives of minorities within the healthcare setting.