“We’ll Get to You When We Get to You”: Exploring Potential Contributions of Health Care Staff Behaviors to Patient Perceptions of Discrimination and Satisfaction

Abstract

The behaviors of nonphysician health care staff in the clinical setting can potentially contribute to patients' perceptions of discrimination and lowered patient satisfaction. Future interventions to reduce health care discrimination should include a focus on staff cultural competence and customer service skills.

Perceived Discrimination and Reported Trust and Satisfaction in African Americans: The Jackson Heart Study

“…1 Perceived discrimination strongly influences patient response to health care providers [2][3] and may account for the greater mistrust, dissatisfaction, and negative perceptions of providers reported by AAs compared with Caucasians. [4][5] Researchers have reported links between trust, satisfaction and perceptions of discrimination from providers. [6][7][8][9] Trust in health care providers is the belief that the provider will act for the benefit of the patient.…”

US Healthcare Experiences of Hispanic Patients with Diabetes and Family Members: A Qualitative Analysis

“…Perceived poor patient-provider interactions have negatively impacted confianza , trust, with the healthcare team (Reininger et al, 2014; Schenker et al, 2010). Also, negative interactions with front office staff have been reported in previous studies with Hispanics contributing to feelings of disrespect, patient dissatisfaction, and perceived discrimination (Keller, Silberberg, Hartmann, & Michener, 2010; Tajeu et al, 2015). Patient-provider relationships built on respect, trust, and culturally competent care are critical to person-centered care (Hudon et al, 2012).…”

“…Similar to the experiences described by our study participants, persons without health insurance are less likely to receive timely care and more likely to go without needed healthcare due to difficulties obtaining appointments, resulting in negative consequences (AHRQ, 2015). Tajeu et al 2015 described implicit bias among front office staff as possibly playing a role in long wait times; where some patients are passed over and others given differential treatment based upon race/ethnicity. Another reason for long waits maybe due to under resourced healthcare facilities that provide care to underserved communities (Tajeu et al, 2015).…”

“…Lower feelings of discrimination have been reported by Hispanics when they have perceived healthcare providers to be respectful and sensitive to their culture (Becerra, Androff, Messing, Castillo, & Cimino, 2015; Nápoles et al, 2012). Greater patient satisfaction and trust have been reported when patients perceive they have been treated respectfully by the healthcare community regardless of insurance status, English language proficiency, or race/ethnicity (Becerra et al, 2015; Calo et al, 2015; Tajeu et al, 2015). …”

Editor's Spotlight/Take 5: Does a Patient-centered Educational Intervention Affect African-American Access to Knee Replacement? A Randomized Trial

“…Are these usage differences caused by impediments to access and provider prejudices, or are they the result of valid personal decisions made by patients who may be caregivers for others or primary wage-earners? Might these differences be explained by patients' perceptions of discrimination [2,21] or by lower levels of trust in a healthcare system that in fact has not always treated all patients equally [5,18]? Such questions should matter to all of us, regardless of the particular type of surgery each of us might perform.…”