[Answered]: Some ways that health professionals can reduce their…

Some ways that health professionals can reduce their biases is by self-awareness and reflection, diverse hiring in the work force, cultural competence training, encouraging feedback and learning how to improve (How to Reduce Implicit Bias in Healthcare | Quality Interactions, 2023). With a world that is constantly evolving and full of many different cultures, it is important to note the different groups that health professionals take care of. These groups being cultures, ethnicities, religions, and even different age groups. Depending on what field in healthcare you work, you may see a wide range of ages in your practice and it is important to understand how to interact with each. If you work in pediatrics, it is important to understand that many children may be scared to go to the doctors and even sometimes the parents. But it is important to stay calm and educate both the child and most importantly the parent as this is the most vital age for disease prevention. Overall, most people will be interacting with the adult population where it is important to remember that many of these people are facing “physical, emotional and educational changes (McKenzie, 2018). This is where young adults are exploring the work force and it is important for this diverse hiring to start and reduce biases. The final group are the older adults which is also growing more diverse and it is important for health professionals to “work to achieve cultural competence in the services they provide to older adults of diverse backgrounds” (McKenzie, 2018). As a health professional you must first reflect on your own biases. Employers may aid in this process by providing online bias training to help those who never previously thought about their biases before and it’s effect on others. Another way is to provide feedback from all these different groups to then try and address what could be done better in the future. Cultural differences may be misinterpreted by health professionals and patients by a lack of knowledge of different cultures. An example of this is when a doctor tries to make eye contact with a patient but some cultures don’t make eye contact as a sign of respect. The doctor may think that the patient is being rude when that’s all the patient has ever known. It’s difficult to know everything about every culture but it’s the job of the healthcare provider to stay informed about your patients and ask questions. Community health workers play a vital role in bridging the gap between patient and provider as they first get to know the patient, learn about their background, and be their advocate. This will then help the patient to navigate to find the correct provider for their needs.