Files
Abstract
Social disparities and implicit bias are detrimental to patient care and exist among providers. Research has shown that implicit bias hinders rapport between patient and provider, leading to patients becoming resistant to medical advice and treatment protocols and lead to providers to misinterpret or misunderstand patients. Therefore, it is crucial to identify levels of implicit bias among healthcare providers and the ramifications that implicit bias could induce. This quality project aims to assess and establish baseline levels of existing implicit bias among anesthesia providers in a healthcare system located in a large southeastern city.Anesthesia providers from four different hospitals were asked to complete the Harvard Implicit Bias Association test on age to assess their baseline level of bias. The email was sent out to the identified 378 providers and 32 student registered nurse anesthetists. The student registered nurse anesthetists are current students completing their clinical education at the four different facilities. In addition, participants provided demographic information about their location of practice, age, race, and anesthesia title. The results were scored using the Harvard IAT D-score’ slight’ (.15), ‘moderate’ (.35), and ‘strong’ (.65). A total of 46 individuals completed the survey; 26 certified registered nurse anesthetists, 18 students registered anesthetists and two anesthesiologists. The results indicated no statistical significance at 95% confidence, showing the difference in provider bias based on race, location, or title.