Lack Of Diversity In Healthcare Professions

First of all, before addressing ways in which institutions can improve diversity in healthcare professions, it’s important to address the many benefits that exist when there is a diverse healthcare workforce. According to the article Disparities in Human Resources: Addressing the Lack of Diversity in the Health Professions, written in 2010 by Kevin Grumbach and Rosalia Mendoza, a “substantial body of research” supports the idea that a more diverse healthcare workforce is positively correlated with “better access to and quality of healthcare” for population that are considered disadvantaged (p. 414). This assertion is supported Rocio Benabentos, Payal Ray, and Deepak Kumar’s 2014 article Addressing Health Disparities in the Undergraduate Curriculum:

An Approach to Develop a Knowledgeable Biomedical Workforce, which states that not only are physicians of underrepresented groups in medicine more likely to voluntarily (and without any sort of obligation) serve “at risk minority populations” (also referred to as a “service pattern”) but there is also evidence to support the finding that “patients treated by physicians from similar cultural backgrounds report better healthcare outcomes” (p. 637). The 2010 article Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce in Nursing: From Evidence to Best Practice to Policy by authors Catherine L. Gilliss, Dorothy L. Powell, and Brigit Carter, gives even more evidence as to the real benefits of diversity in healthcare professions. The authors confirm that health disparities could be alleviated reflecting the diversity of the US population in healthcare professions (Gilliss et al., 2010). These authors also claim that the “service pattern” previously mentioned regarding physicians is indeed strongest for physicians, followed by Physician’s Assistance (PAs), Nurse Practitioners (NPs), and Certified Nurse Midwife (CNMs), respectively (Gilliss et al., 2010, p. 296). All of these arguments paint a clear picture- when the diversity of healthcare reflects the diversity of the population being served, there is an increase in positive outcomes and patient satisfaction. The quality of healthcare for every individual patient will improve with the active improvement of minority representation within healthcare fields. The only question is, how can the institution that provide healthcare initiate this change?