Thesis on Diversity and Inclusion
Thesis on Diversity and Inclusion
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Table of Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u Introduction PAGEREF _Toc115417674 h 3Exclusion and Its Negative Impact on Healthcare Organizations PAGEREF _Toc115417675 h 3What Healthcare Organizations do to Promote Diversity and Inclusion Training PAGEREF _Toc115417676 h 5How Diversity and Inclusion Training Looks Like PAGEREF _Toc115417677 h 6Steps that Healthcare Organizations Take to Enforce Diversity PAGEREF _Toc115417678 h 7How Diversity and Inclusion in Healthcare Organizations can be Improved PAGEREF _Toc115417679 h 9Summary of the Chapter PAGEREF _Toc115417680 h 10
Thesis on Diversity and Inclusion
IntroductionAlthough the health workforce serves diverse populations, it is relatively homogenous. This has led healthcare systems to face major challenges matching patients’ attitudes, care customization, beliefs, and expectations to a sufficiently diverse workforce (Khuntia et al., 2022). Consequently, this results in quality care issues. Therefore, it is vital to have a diverse healthcare workforce that reflects the diversity of communities in terms of sexual orientation, race, physical disability status, gender, and socioeconomic levels to provide the best possible quality care to diverse patient populations (Stanford, 2020). The goal of this chapter is to give an understanding of how healthcare organizations can promote diversity and inclusion. The chapter is organized into several subtopics. The concept of exclusion and its negative impact on healthcare organizations is discussed at the beginning of the chapter. Further, the chapter outlines what healthcare organizations do to promote diversity and inclusion training and what this training looks like. Furthermore, the steps that healthcare organizations can take to enforce diversity are discussed. Finally, recommendations on how diversity and inclusion can be made better in healthcare organizations are provided.
Exclusion and Its Negative Impact on Healthcare OrganizationsExclusion is the opposite of inclusion (Ashikali et al., 2021). Dobusch (2021) further explains that exclusion means the absence of inclusion. Thus, exclusion can be defined as the creation of a work environment in which there is unfair treatment of some employees, where these employees are not granted equal resources and opportunities to contribute fully to the success of the organization on the basis of racial, cultural, or social identity. When there is an exclusion in healthcare organizations, some healthcare providers lack a voice in the provision of healthcare services due to differences in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or sexual orientation.
Exclusion is associated with major negative impacts in healthcare organizations. One of the negative effects of exclusion in healthcare organizations is long-term stress and anxiety. Supporting this statement, Dobusch (2021) reveals that exclusion through discrimination causes psychological damage and harms an individual’s health through long-term anxiety and stress. On the same note, van Bergen et al. (2019) urge that the experience of exclusion is associated with stress-related unhealthy behaviors.
Another significant negative impact of exclusion in a healthcare organization is the provision of poor-quality healthcare services. Exclusion results in a lack of a diverse healthcare workforce (O’Donnell et al., 2018). When the healthcare workforce is not diverse, there are limited perspectives when providing patients with social support, medical care, or psychological treatment (Roen, 2019). Consequently, this results in the provision of poor-quality healthcare services. Research has shown that diversity in healthcare organizations is associated with improved quality of healthcare (Gomez & Bernet, 2019). Also, when there is an exclusion in a healthcare organization, the healthcare workforce lacks diverse professionals to reflect the diversity of the patient population in terms of sexual orientation, race, physical disability status, gender, and socioeconomic levels to provide the best possible quality care to the diverse patient populations.
Exclusion in healthcare organizations also results in communication breakdown. Communication breakdown may result from the language barrier, differences in cultural norms, differences in philosophy, or even cultural bias. Supporting this statement, Crawford et al. (2017) claim that a lack of diversity leads to a communication breakdown with patients. If a patient cannot fully communicate or express their needs, this poses serious threats to care delivery (Vermeir et al., 2015)
Lastly, exclusion in healthcare organizations undermines the level of trust that patients have in healthcare providers. Supporting his statement, Rotenstein et al. (2021) urge that the lack of healthcare workforce diversity has a detrimental impact on patient trust. Because exclusion results in a lack of diversity in the healthcare workforce, it can be inferred that exclusion indirectly affects patient trust. Mistrust of healthcare professionals has developed among patients as a result of historical medical maltreatment of people of color, such as neglecting patients’ health concerns. One strategy to enhance the patient-provider relationship and promote trust is to promote a shared identity between patients and their healthcare providers.
Due to the adverse effects of exclusion in the workplace, healthcare organizations have adopted various steps to promote diversity and inclusion training. These steps are discussed in the next section.
What Healthcare Organizations do to Promote Diversity and Inclusion TrainingHealthcare organizations have adopted various strategies to promote diversity and inclusion training. One of these ways is hiring experts to lead inclusion and diversity training. Just as healthcare organizations hire accounting experts to streamline their financial books, they tend to hire experts in inclusion and diversity to train the organizations on the best diversity and inclusion strategies. By so doing, this improves the success of the organization’s diversity and inclusion strategies.
Also, healthcare organizations offer flexible diversity and inclusion training programs to promote diversity and inclusion training. Razu et al. (2021) reveal that healthcare providers have very busy schedules. Notably, the busy schedule of people working in the healthcare industry can be attributed to the increasing number of people getting sick. Because of these busy work schedules, healthcare organizations tend to organize online diversity and inclusion training so as to accommodate their busy workforce. The online training includes sharing online courses, use of webinars, and online one-on-one coaching.
Healthcare organizations also promote diversity and inclusion training by adopting various diversity training strategies. They tend to acknowledge that different people learn differently and thus encourage diversity and inclusion experts to adopt various strategies when teaching diversity and inclusion. Some healthcare organizations’ diversity and inclusion teaching strategies include role-plays, videos, and one-on-one coaching.
How Diversity and Inclusion Training Looks LikeDiversity and inclusion training in healthcare organizations aims to increase healthcare workforce awareness of different cultures and ways of life. It increases the healthcare professionals’ knowledge about people from different backgrounds, such as racial, socioeconomic, ethnic, and sexual orientation. Diversity and inclusion training in healthcare organizations may be conducted in the form of presentations, seminars, or even small group activities that aim to raise awareness of different cultures.
Diversity and inclusion training in healthcare is characterized by training on demographic factors, psychographic factors, how to develop inter-relations, and conflict resolution and prevention. Diversity and inclusion training on demographic factors entails educating healthcare providers on similarities and differences between people based on demographic factors. Demographic factors as the quantifiable identity characteristics such as age, disability, gender, employment status, and ethnicity (Baum, 2020). According to the author, demographic factors help healthcare providers understand their patients.
Diversity and inclusion training on psychographic factors focuses on training the healthcare workforce on the differences and similarities between people based on values, attitudes, personalities, emotions, lifestyles, and interests (Baum, 2020). According to Baum (2020), psychographic factors explain to healthcare providers why the patient being attended to became part of their practice. Diversity and inclusion training on psychographic factors makes healthcare professionals more open to unfamiliar behaviors, practices, and behaviors. This allows them to provide quality care to the diverse patient population.
Furthermore, diversity and inclusion training of healthcare providers on how to develop inter-relations allows them to create healthy interpersonal relationships with patients from different backgrounds. The Healthcare workforce serves a diverse patient population; hence they must be able to develop healthy relationships to facilitate care delivery. According to Molina-Mula and Gallo-Estrada (2020), healthcare providers must establish a good relationship with patients since it reduces the days of hospital stay, increases patient satisfaction, and improves the quality of care.
Lastly, diversity and inclusion training are characterized by training healthcare providers on conflict resolution and prevention. Notably, the healthcare workforce comprises individuals from different backgrounds. Therefore, when training the healthcare workforce on diversity and inclusion, these individuals are trained on conflict resolution and prevention because conflict is inevitable when different people work together. Conflict resolution and prevention training minimizes the occurrence of conflicts by encouraging open communication between healthcare providers. Also, training healthcare providers on conflict resolution and prevention help them to minimize conflict with patients and patients’ family members when it comes to critical decision-making during care delivery.
Steps that Healthcare Organizations Take to Enforce DiversityHealthcare organizations today take various steps to enforce diversity. Firstly, they encourage diverse applicants to apply for advertised jobs by including diversity clauses that state that people from all backgrounds and disadvantaged and minority job seekers are welcome to apply (Andreassen, 2021). The most common healthcare job boards that healthcare organizations advertise for a job vacancy include MedicalJobs.org, Health eCareers, MedJobsCafe.com, JAMA Career Center, and Medzilla.com. When these organizations include a diversity clause in job adverts, this attracts people from different backgrounds to apply for the job. This gives the healthcare organization to recruit a diverse healthcare workforce.
Another step healthcare organizations take to enforce diversity is creating a welcoming environment for employees from various backgrounds. Seeleman et al. (2015) support this statement claiming that healthcare organizations promote diversity by creating a welcoming and inclusive work environment for all employees. One way to create a welcoming environment is by ensuring that all voices are heard and that all employees feel safe to share their views and opinions despite their backgrounds.
Another way that healthcare organizations enforce diversity is by ensuring that diversity and inclusion are entrenched within the culture. This is achieved by making diversity an integral element of organizational culture. Organizational culture is defined as the routine activities that take place in an organization (Aboramadan et al., 2020). Therefore, to enforce diversity, healthcare organizations have made diversity one of the key elements that must be observed in the organization.
Also, healthcare organizations enforce diversity by integrating stakeholders from various organizational levels and ensuring that all groups are engaged in discussions intended to enact and maintain inclusion and diversity efforts (Stanford, 2020). When these stakeholders meet, they discuss organizational issues from the perspective of equality among healthcare providers and come up with objectives for inclusive HR policies that relate to issues such as recruitment.
Furthermore, healthcare organizations enforce diversity by sharing failures and successes with similar organizations. Doing so allows the organizations to reflect on weaknesses and strengths in the previously adopted inclusion and diversity strategies (Stanford, 2020). The reflecting company shares its views and opinions on how the other company can improve its diversity and inclusion strategy. Lastly, healthcare organizations enforce diversity by engaging with local schools and communities to make sure that people from underrepresented groups are exposed early to the fields of medicine (Stanford, 2020).
How Diversity and Inclusion in Healthcare Organizations can be ImprovedAccording to Stanford (2020), any step forward is a step in the right direction to improve inclusion and diversity in medicine. Thus, one way through which healthcare organizations can improve diversity and inclusion is through the provision of effective education. Organizations can include required education as part of new hire orientation and onboarding and schedule follow-up training for new employees to ensure that employees are well-informed on the benefits of promoting inclusion and diversity. When a healthcare organization has diversity and inclusion knowledge, there is a transformation in the way people think, perform medical duties, and handle patients.
Secondly, diversity and inclusion in healthcare organizations can be improved through the organizations knowing their bases. Organizations can thoroughly assess their culture in relation to Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) standards to determine how well they are performing and identify their weak areas. Organizations can use their assessment results to improve diversity and inclusion. The assessment results can help the organization identify the areas that require more effort.
Lastly, executive leaders must fully commit to DEI initiatives in order to have a significant and long-lasting impact on them. Thus, healthcare organizations can improve diversity and inclusion by establishing leadership commitment. Usually, when an organization’s leadership upholds some behaviors and practices, their subordinates follow them because they consider them their role models (Al Halbusi et al., 2020). Leaders must also set an example for their subordinates to follow. It will be easier to maintain authenticity and accountability at the forefront of these efforts if there are channels for feedback.
Summary of the ChapterOverall, this chapter aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how healthcare organizations can promote diversity and inclusion. The exclusion, which means that some healthcare providers lack a voice in the provision of healthcare services due to differences in their cultural, social, and racial identities, is associated with negative effects in healthcare organizations, including healthcare providers’ long-term stress and anxiety, provision of poor-quality care, communication breakdown, and undermining of patient trust. Healthcare organizations promote diversity and inclusion training to deal with the adverse effects of exclusion. To promote diversity and inclusion training, healthcare organizations offer flexible training programs, use leaders as role models, and adopt various inclusion and diversity training strategies. This chapter reveals that diversity training is characterized by training on demographic factors, psychographic factors, how to develop inter-relations, and conflict resolution and prevention. Diversity and inclusion training in healthcare organizations increases healthcare providers’ awareness of different cultures and ways of life. From the literature reviewed, healthcare organizations enforce diversity through encouraging diverse job applicants, creating a safe work environment, sharing failures and successes of their diversity strategies with similar organizations, and engaging with local schools and communities to make sure that people from underrepresented groups are exposed early to the fields of medicine. In the future, healthcare organizations can improve diversity and inclusion through the provision of effective education, establishing their baseline, and measuring the success of their inclusion and diversion strategies.
References
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