Isms in Health Care Human Resources - Exam Notes

In Health Care Human Resources: A Concise Guide to Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

  • Authors:

    • Darren Liu, DrPH, MHA, MS

    • Betty Burston, PhD

    • Shartriya Collier Stewart, MEd, EdD

    • Heidi H. Mulligan

  • Includes Navigate 2 eBook Access

    • Provides personal, interactive, collaborative learning experience

    • Easy access to digital textbook (online/offline)

    • Interactive tools and note-taking capabilities

    • Chapter quizzes for knowledge reinforcement

Brief Contents

  • Chapter 1: Isms in Healthcare and Other Workplaces: An Overview

  • Chapter 2: What Is Central Tendencyism and How Does It Affect Healthcare and Other Workplaces?

  • Chapter 3: Sexualism: Reducing Sexual Harassment in Healthcare Workplaces

  • Chapter 4: IQism in Healthcare Workplaces and Output Maximization

  • Chapter 5: Heterosexism in Healthcare and Other Workplaces

  • Chapter 6: Reducing Isms as Barriers to Output Maximization in Healthcare and Other Workplaces

  • Chapter 7: Epilogue: Where Do We Go from Here?

  • Glossary

  • Index

Preface Highlights

  • Diversity includes noticeable heterogeneity, variety, or multifariousness.
    *Organizations valuing diversity seek to maximize outcomes across diverse workplaces.
    *Healthcare administrators shape a culture using diversity, equity, and inclusion to deliver maximum goods/services.
    *Micro-level conflicts subtract from humankind’s possibilities.
    *Humans should act in oneness, not divisiveness, which was key during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    *Commitment to diminish 'isms' requires introspection and collective effort.
    *Humankind should rise collectively to pledge to no longer elevate/denigrate based on differences.
    *Strategies reducing 'isms' in healthcare can reduce related health risks in other life arenas.
    *The book introduces an alternative framework for reversing 'isms' in healthcare workplaces, assessing the impact of negative attitudes and beliefs about differing individuals, ultimately aiming to reduce 'isms' to statistical and operative insignificance, promoting diversity in hiring, building, leading, and managing teams.

Chapter 1: Isms in Healthcare and Other Workplaces - An Overview

  • Goal: To maximize workplace outcomes, managers and administrators must behave strategically in hiring, building, leading, and managing their teams.

  • The book is based on the Theory of Central Tendencyism to recognize and avoid “uncivil” behaviors via self-reflection on the underdeveloped humanisms that accompany “Isms” when such behaviors appear in workplaces.

  • An overview of the demographic composition in Healthcare workplaces include demographic data, racial/ethnic asymmetries, and the medical and health service managers sector and healthcare practitioners.

  • Females are significantly over-represented in every single segment of the healthcare workplace (almost 68% more likely to work in health care than in the American economy as a whole).

    • Trend: when the workplaces are disaggregated.

  • Data: data from 2017 and 2018 were examined in 2020. Approximately 153,337,000 people aged 16 and older were working in the United States. In 2018, the number of workers had increased to approximately 155,761,000. Approximately 21,133,000 or 13.56% of these employees worked in health care.

  • Race and ethnicity:

    • White Americans employed at rates greater number in the overall economy compared to Latino.

    • African Americans over-represented among healthcare and assistance workers.

  • Intersectionalities in the U.S. workplace extend beyond race/ethnicity and gender.

  • Other Workplace “Isms” include Ageism, Lookism, Linguicism, Sectarianism, Ableism, and Nameism.

  • Ageism: Robert N. Butler (1969) introduced the term “ageism”, a concept that has since been redefined as applying preconceived beliefs about individuals that discount their worth based on their age.

  • Beliefs, assumptions, and behaviors regarding workers in healthcare and other workplaces can also occur because of a person's physical appearance called “lookism."

  • Lee at al. (2017) using long-term data, suggest that lookism can also have a very negative impact on overall health, based on a study of individuals from age 15 to 24 years of age, persons who were considered less attractive had worse health outcomes by the age of 24 years than the “more attractive” people who had earned higher social ratings.

  • A linguist, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (2000), is credited with introducing the concept of linguicism. Linguicism references patterns of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that devalue others and reduce their professional and/or personal opportunities because of language.

  • American Name Society, n.d.). Marusic implicitly describes the power of names, denoting gender and origin, in a discussion of the problems encountered by scholars with Arabic, Eastern Mediterranean, Chinese, Spanish, and other names, transforming into nameism and equality gaps in a person's productivity.

  • How Isms in Healthcare and Other Workplaces Affect Productivity

    • Intersectionalities cannot be ignored by a healthcare manager and/or administrator (nor by management in other workplaces)

    • Adverse beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors based on sex, race, religion, sexual preference, and other characteristics negatively impact maximization of output and minimization of costs in healthcare.

    • It is important that healthcare managers and human resource managers maximize outcomes and minimize costs because Isms interfere with this mandate.

  • Table 1.1 is a simple tool for getting a VIEW OF information on the racial/ethnic diversity in healthcare workplaces versus the overall U.S. workplace

While compliance with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations is crucial for fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace, it does not guarantee the complete elimination of 'isms'. Here’s why:

  • EEOC Regulations Focus on Legal Compliance: EEOC regulations primarily aim to prevent discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, gender, age, and disability. However, these regulations alone address only overt and formal discrimination, leaving room for covert biases and ingrained stereotypes that continue to perpetuate 'isms'.

  • Workplace Culture and Climate: Compliance does not automatically change the underlying culture of an organization. A workplace may fulfill all legal requirements yet still exhibit attitudes and behaviors that reinforce 'isms', such as sexism, racism, or ableism. Without a comprehensive strategy that also emphasizes promoting an inclusive culture, mere adherence to EEOC regulations will not suffice.

  • Intersectionality: 'Isms' often intersect and influence each other in complex ways. Compliance with EEOC regulations typically does not address how these intersecting identities may lead to compounded experiences of discrimination or marginalization.

  • Need for Continuous Education and Culture Change: Effective reduction of 'isms' necessitates ongoing training, education, and introspection at all levels of the organization. Such efforts go beyond compliance and involve cultivating an environment where diversity, equity, and inclusion are actively valued and practiced.

  • Assessment and Accountability: Organizations must regularly assess their practices and outcomes to identify and mitigate areas where subtle forms of discrimination may still be occurring, fostering a culture of accountability rather than solely focusing on compliance