SBIR-STTR Award

This application is to develop a computer-based Disparities, Culture and Health course which uses interactive multimedia technology to integrate the acquisition new attitudes, knowledge, and skills for reducing disparities in health. The course will consist of five modules (sections) and provide a comprehensive introduction to health care disparities and cultural competence for health care professionals and students (physicians, nurses, social workers, etc.). The goal is to improve users' understanding of disparities and the role of culture in healthcare, thereby promoting cross-cultural clinical encounters that are satisfying to both patients and providers, lead to better health outcomes, and help to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in care. In order to motivate healthcare professionals and students to engage in cultural competence training (CCT), they must first be educated about the disparities in the quality of health care that make CCT an essential rather than peripheral aspect of medical education. Therefore the module developed in Phase I will be Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health Care for physicians in training. The educational goals of the Disparities module are: 1) familiarize learners with the evidence for racial/ethnic disparities; 2) review potential factors contributing to disparities, including provider bias and communication; 3) provide opportunities for self-assessment of attitudes toward racial and ethnic diversity; 4) provide learners with strategies and skills to help reduce disparities. Usability and software performance will be evaluated as well as the modules effectiveness in meeting the learning objectives. Accrediting bodies, professional societies, governmental entities, and other influential groups (e.g., institute of Medicine) have all endorsed and prioritized efforts to increase the cultural competence of health care providers. The computer-based Disparities, Culture and Health course is timely and will meet a growing demand for a variety of CCT training materials.

Thesaurus Terms:
computer assisted instruction, culture, educational resource design /development, health care, health disparity, interactive multimedia, medical education, racial /ethnic difference bias, health, health care quality, patient care personnel attitude, patient care personnel relations, physician clinical research, human subject

This Phase II SBIR grant will complete the development and evaluation of Healthcare Disparities: Patients & Providers, an e-learning course for physicians and physicians in training. The Phase I module, Healthcare Disparities, provides instruction in the evidence and causes of disparities and examines the changing meaning of race in healthcare. In Phase II, the Race IAT (Implicit Associations Test) followed by a debriefing will be incorporated in a second module on unconscious biases. The third module of the course will provide data on racial/ethnic perspectives on healthcare and will include instruction in skills for improving dimensions of the patient-provider relationship that have been linked to healthcare disparities. Version 2 of the Healthcare Disparities Knowledge Test and a Virtual Patient Assessment will be developed for use in the outcome evaluation and will be included in the final product. The goals of the completed course are to increase self awareness of racial attitudes, improve knowledge of racial/ethnic disparities, and enhance skills for patient-provider communication in order to eliminate healthcare disparities that are attributable to the patient-provider relationship. The completed e-learning course will be evaluated in an online study with resident physicians using a four group, pre-post randomized design with multiple measures. Study measures will include demographic information, the revised knowledge test piloted in Phase I, scores on the Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS) used for coding audio recorded interactions in the Virtual Patient Assessment, a Liking Scale, and user evaluations of the course. The completed course will be marketed to healthcare organizations and professional associations as well as schools of medicine and residency training programs as a resource in the national campaign to eliminate healthcare disparities. 7.

Public Health Relevance:
Following the Institute of Medicine's landmark report Unequal Treatment, the evidence base on the nature and causes of healthcare disparities continues to grow, policy statements and program guidelines are published, and yet a large number of physicians remain disturbingly unaware of the disparities in their field of practice. The goal of the Healthcare Disparities: Patients & Providers e-learning course is to eliminate disparities that may be due to patient-provider interactions by improving knowledge about disparities, promoting reflection on providers' unconscious bias, and enhancing skills for communication and relationship building with racial/ethnic minority patients. The course will be one resource in the multilevel campaign to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in healthcare by 2010.

Public Health Relevance:
This Public Health Relevance is not available.

Thesaurus Terms:
There Are No Thesaurus Terms On File For This Project.