Bias is the direct or indirect manifestation of many-sided negative evaluation of one faction of the society and its members’ comparative to another faction. This bias can be implicit or explicit. This paper will examine implicit bias in the executive nursing track. The general opinion of most people is that each person should be treated fairly irrespective of his/her background, race, or ethnicity. Yet individuals are inundated by reports that biases based on issues such as ethnicity affect how people treat each other. People have conscious principles, which are often revealed by the prejudiced effect of their implicit biases (Godsil et al., 2014). In the executive nursing, implicit bias is nothing new. The research will discuss implicit bias in executive nursing track, how this bias affect outcomes, recognize a personal bias, formulate a plan to lessen bias, and provide a self-assessment on lesson learned through finalizing this research paper.
Discussion of Implicit Bias
Within healthcare organizations, the most high-ranking nurses are the Executive Nurses. Frequently, they hold leading roles at the facility’s board level for strategic fundamentals of quality of care and patients’ safety, which encompasses staffing of nurses, controlling of infections, and patient’s personal experience (Jones, Kelly, & Lankshear, 2016). Since executive nurses are among the most senior leaders among healthcare professionals, they have the potential to play a role in the unequaled understanding of the kind of care the organization gives to its patients. Yet, implicit bias exists in executive nursing. Implicit attitudes and stereotypes among executive nurses is an aspect of the mental conditioning of individuals. It has a profound impact on the likelihood that patients will seek the required care or not.
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"Examination of Implicit Bias in Executive Nursing".
How Biases Impact Outcome
Implicit bias, as proposed by studies, may play a part in disparities within health care by shaping a nurse executive’s behavior and bringing into being differences in health care based on factors such as race, ethnicity or gender (D’Alfonso, 2017). These disparities include under-treatment of conditions such as pain is certain groups. Not only does implicit bias lead to under-treatment, but research has revealed that nurse executives with implicit biases have a high chance of causing junior nurses to adopt these biases. As a consequence, this impacts trust between patients and care givers. To improve patient outcomes, it is critical to develop transformational nursing leadership.
Identification of A Personal Bias
A personal bias I exhibit is often making the assumption that the appearance of an individual/patient reflects on his background. This personal bias is implicit due to the fact that it exists outside my conscious awareness, and for this reason, sometimes it becomes tricky to willfully acknowledge and control. Identifying this personal bias is critical as it can impact future relationships with patients and other nurses while providing care.
Strategy to Reduce Bias
The first step in reducing bias is to identify the fact that it exists. This is then followed by talking about it so that the conversation can be open and as a consequence, pave way for better outcomes during patient and nurse interactions. This can be done by talking to colleagues and learning how they deal with bias. Another way is to talk to patients and get to know them. It is through learning about the patient’s diverse background that one becomes conscious of their bias and this helps to overcome it.
Self-reflection
This assessment has shown that both nurses and patients can exhibit bias during the process of care provision. How a healthcare provider or patient interprets a situation and react to it can influence the outcome of the care services provided. Becoming aware that bias is a problem and communicating effectively to understand the other person can go a long way in fixing the problem. A wide-scale dedication to dealing with implicit bias in executive nursing is essential and overdue.
