Addressing Unconscious Bias in Healthcare: A Personal Reflection for Future Nurse Leaders, Thesis of Business Accounting

Download Addressing Unconscious Bias in Healthcare: A Personal Reflection for Future Nurse Leaders and more Thesis Business Accounting in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Addressing Bias Chamberlain University NR 500-Foundational Concepts and Applications 2 Addressing Bias Introduction. When you think of bias, you may think of having a prejudice against something or someone most of the times. The Webster-Miriam Dictionary defines bias as “an inclination of temperament or outlook; especially a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgement: prejudice.” In this world that we live in, no one wants to believe that they have prejudices or biases toward people or things. A blog piece from Psychology Today says that “biases are often based on stereotypes, rather than actual knowledge of an individual or circumstance. In this paper I will discuss bias in relation to healthcare and more specifically Nursing Leadership. I will identify bias within myself and how to reduce it. Then hopefully, I can reflect on what I have learned about bias and bias within myself. Discussion of Bias. When it comes to bias in healthcare, it can lead to health disparities against certain groups. I have chosen to follow the Nurse Executive track to provide leadership within my profession. The health disparities mentioned above usually occurs with direct care providers. When it comes to nurse leaders, bias can also be toward the staff that you are involved in leading. As a future nurse leader, the most likely type of bias that one can have is unconscious bias. Unconscious bias is also referred to as implicit bias. Ackerman-Barger (2017), describes this type of bias as “the beliefs and prejudices we hold that reside outside of our awareness”. These unconscious biases can have a negative impact on our professional values and thus the care we provide. As a nurse leader, you can have unconscious bias toward staff because of race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, religion and even on age. As a nurse leader, your goal is to put together an exceptional team to accomplish the organization’s goal. This unconscious bias can affect a nurse leader not just to the hiring of staff but also with communication, career