Healthcare Disparities

This course on healthcare disparities is designed to increase awareness about racial and ethnic disparities across the spectrum of healthcare services and examine the use of patient-centered communication skills to minimize these disparities. This course includes peer-reviewed research, interactive case studies, and multimedia assessments that address topics including how the patient-physician relationship can contribute to disparities and how unconscious bias may conflict with consciously-held egalitarian values. The full course was evaluated using a randomized-controlled trial with a national sample of 130 physicians and resident physicians. It appears to have global effects on physicians' knowledge of disparities, attitudes toward unconscious bias, and satisfaction with virtual patient encounters.