Joint Commission Addresses Implicit Bias in Healthcare

In the April 2016 issue of Quick Safety, The Joint Commission addresses implicit, or unconscious, bias in healthcare, and its impact on patient safety.

Fifteen years after the publication of two seminal reports from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) – Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21^st Century and Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care – The Joint Commission highlights that racial and socioeconomic inequity persists in health care. In Crossing the Quality Chasm, the IOM stressed the importance of equity in care as one of the six pillars of quality health care, along with efficiency, effectiveness, safety, timeliness and patient-centeredness. Indeed, Unequal Treatment found that even with the same insurance and socioeconomic status, and when comorbidities, stage of presentation, and other confounders are controlled for, minorities often receive a lower quality of health care than do their white counterparts.

The Joint Commission identifies there is extensive evidence and research that finds