ReachMD

Implicit bias refers to unconscious attitudes and stereotypes that influence our thoughts, judgements, decisions, and actions without our awareness. Everyone is susceptible to implicit bias, even clinicians.  In healthcare, implicit biases can have a significant impact on the quality of care an individual receives.  These biases, can be both favorable and unfavorable, and are activated involuntarily without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.  Studies have indicated that healthcare providers’ incorrect perceptions can impact providers’ communications and clinical decision-making contributing to disparities in clinical outcomes. Addressing implicit biases in healthcare is critical to improving health outcomes and promoting health equity for all patients. Patient-centered care can reduce the impact of implicit bias, by treating each patient as a unique individual who may or may not hold beliefs associated with their backgrounds and circumstances.  In addition, recognizing implicit bias in one’s own practice using techniques such as self-reflection and mindful clinical decision-making can ensure more equitable and effective care to all patients.  

Over the past several decades, cognitive science research has demonstrated human behavior, beliefs and attitudes are shaped by automatic and unconscious cognitive processes.  The healthcare profession is devoting greater attention to how these automatic and unconscious processes impact care including:  (1) preferential treatment toward or against specific patient populations causing healthcare inequities, (2) influence patient-provider communications leading to misunderstandings and mistrust, and (3) impact access to  healthcare and affect treatment decisions resulting in misdiagnosis, delays in treatment and specialty referrals and poor pain management. Considering one might have unconscious biases and exploring them may be uncomfortable because the very idea that they exist may conflict with how clinicians perceive themselves.  It is only by becoming aware of one’s unconscious biases that members of the healthcare team can take steps to mitigate them to ensure all their patients are treated receive quality healthcare.