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Delivering Implicit Bias Training for Health Care Providers – Via Smartphone

Delivering Implicit Bias Training for Health Care Providers – Via Smartphone 1024 680 Jessica Nye, PhD

A Virtual and Augmented Reality Implicit Association Training (VARIAT) app developed by investigators from Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University leverages mobile technology to bring implicit bias training to the hands of Medicaid clinicians.

Everyone has implicit biases that manifest as favorable or unfavorable perspectives about race, gender, sexual orientation and/or socioeconomic status, among other factors. For clinicians, these biases can unintentionally affect medical decision-making and the quality of care provided. To mitigate implicit bias in medicine, it is important for health care providers to be educated about cultural competency.

“When starting this project, we asked, ‘How do we reach a large population of practicing health care providers of all different disciplines, in a way that fits their busy schedule?’ and ‘How can we maximize learner engagement?’ Since everyone’s on their phone, which is both accessible and portable, we came up with the idea of developing an app,” says Tensing Maa, MD, medical director of the Simulation Program at Nationwide Children’s and clinical professor in Pediatrics for The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Dr. Maa and colleagues partnered with the technology company LittleSeed to create a mobile app through which implicit bias training could be delivered. VARIAT comprises two interconnected modules focusing on sexual orientation/gender identity and race/socioeconomic status. Each scenario has a duration of 5 to 10 minutes and is followed by a module debriefing and quiz. VARIAT can be completed in on-demand, brief periods of time, or all at once. The intended audience is Medicaid providers in Ohio, and this Medicaid Equity Simulation Project was funded by the Ohio Department of Medicaid and administered by the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center.

VARIAT was evaluated in a study published in JMIR Serious Games, in which 18 Medicaid providers used the app and were surveyed about their experience.

The study participants were majority White, women, fully credentialed physicians or social workers and worked in a hospital.

Participants reported that VARIAT training was relevant to their job and they had positive feelings about being in the simulation. Most participants thought completing both modules would improve their relationship with their patients, improve delivery of tailored care and avoid undesirable events. In addition, most thought the sexual orientation and gender identity module would improve patient satisfaction and that the race and socioeconomic status module would improve community resources.

All quiz scores increased from pretest to posttest, however, no changes reached significance.

Dr. Maa concluded, “I think that there is a lot of potential for this type of technology, that it could be updated or expanded with other modules.” VARIAT is available for free in the App store.

This article also appears in the Fall/Winter 2024 print issue. Download the full issue.

 

Reference:

Shen J, Clinton AJ, Penka J, Gregory ME, Sova L, Pfeil S, Patterson J, Maa T. Smartphone-based Virtual and Augmented Reality Implicit Association Training (VARIAT) for reducing implicit biases toward patients among health care providers: App Development and Pilot Testing. JMIR Serious Games. 2024 Mar 7:12:e51310.

Image credit: Adobe Stock

 

About the author

Jessica Nye, PhD, is a freelance science and medical writer based in Barcelona, Spain. She completed her BS in biology and chemistry and MS in evolutionary biology at Florida State University. Dr. Nye studied population genetics for her doctorate in biomedicine at University of Pompeu Fabra. She conducted her postdoctoral research on the inheritance of complex traits at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.