Why Representation in Health Care Matters
This Black History Month, we look at the importance of diversity in health care
Prioritizing diversity in healthcare is good for everyone — including doctors, the institutions that employ them, their patients, and the communities they serve.
In this post, we’ll take a look at why representation of different cultures, races, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations in health care matters.
Let’s first start by looking at where we’re currently at in terms of health care demographics so that we have a better idea of where we’re falling short and how we can fill those gaps.
Current health care demographics
According to the most recent data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, Diversity in Medicine: Facts and Figures 2019, most active physicians are White (56.2 percent) and male (64.1 percent).
Only 36 percent of active physicians are female, fewer than six percent of physicians identify as Hispanic, and only about five percent identify as African-American or Black. This is despite the fact that Hispanics make up about 19 percent — and African-Americans 13 percent — of the U.S. population.
Benefits of diversity in health care
How can having a more diverse representation in health care benefit everyone involved? Fortunately, when diversity is implemented at all levels and at every stage within the health care system, there are a lot of pros and little to no cons. Our institutions, physicians and health care workers, and patients and the community stand to benefit from a more representative body.
The benefits of diversity in health care for institutions is myriad; they include:
Improved recruitment: A commitment to diversity helps institutions attract new talent and offers a stronger hiring proposition for candidates.
Increased employee retention: The more at home, safe, and comfortable health care workers feel in the workplace, the longer they will stay with your organization.
Better healthcare: Arguably one of the most compelling benefits, a more diverse workplace means better health care, with McKinsey finding that gender- and ethnically-diverse companies outperform those that aren’t.
Higher cash flow and revenue: Obviously, this outperformance has a positive effect on an institution’s bottom line. Not only do diverse companies enjoy 2.5 times higher cash flow per employee, diverse management has been shown to increase revenue by 19 percent.
When it comes to employees in general, three in four job seekers and workers prefer diverse companies. When it comes to benefits for physicians and health care workers specifically, a more diverse workforce can boost employee morale as it can create a stronger feeling of community and inclusion.
For example, when there’s no increased pressure to “fit in”, minority healthcare workers feel safer, less stressed, and can better enjoy their workplace. It’s also been shown that a more diverse workplace — and its inherent wider range of perspectives — can mean better and more creative problem solving. The resulting new ideas and greater innovation can also lead to operational excellence and better patient outcomes.
Representation in health care can also mean fewer disparities in outcomes by ethnicity. As the Health Professionals for Diversity (HPD) Coalition has stated, “health-care disparities have long existed for racial and ethnic minority populations, and these shocking differences in health care continue to result in individuals from these groups suffering disproportionately, and often unnecessarily, from treatable, curable, or preventable diseases.”
One reason for such disparities is due to implicit racial and/or ethnic bias. By ensuring the healthcare workforce is more diverse, every patient will receive better care, and the community will be better served.
Where we go from here
In order to better serve our patient population — while also better serving our physicians, health care workers, and organizations — it’s important to ensure diversity is a core value in all of (and at every stage of) our healthcare institutions.
One way to start implementing better practices is to conduct diversity training. This can not only help target implicit attitudes and bias among health care professionals in order to intervene, it can also increase communication skills, identify potential barriers to care, and improve overall cultural understanding.
By ensuring our health care environments are more open, diverse, and welcoming, we can ensure everyone, at every stage, and at every touchpoint of the health care journey is treated more fairly and equitably.
While such a shift can’t happen overnight, it’s important to prioritize institutional and organizational change now in order for it to take root, achieve the buy-in it needs, and become an integral part of the overall health care culture over time. By understanding our history and the lived experiences of women in the medical sciences, we can shape a more inclusive and equitable experience for professionals.