Question

Give two reasons how the diversity or lack of diversity of a healthcare organization’s staff could impact the healthcare organization's performance?

Answer 1

Diversity refers to the differences in age, gender, ethnicity, physical capacity, political ideology, and sexual orientation among the employees of an organization.

How diversity impacts the healthcare organization’s performance:

The performance of a healthcare organization is evaluated in terms of patient care and patient satisfaction at lower costs. Diversity improves the performance of healthcare organizations due to the following two reasons.

1. Enhanced understanding about patients: In the case of healthcare, it is important to understand the differences in languages and patient’s beliefs about life, death, and medicine, as the beliefs impact the effectiveness of treatment. A culturally diverse workforce can provide the inputs related to the understanding of patients to treat them in a better way. For instance, a Hispanic patient has different culture, beliefs, and perceptions than American individual, so having a workforce from the Hispanic community will enhance patient care.

2. Better productivity and innovation: Due to a generationally diverse workforce, the organization gets different viewpoints and expertise in different subjects. Each generation has their own communication style and attitude to treat patients. The employees from baby boomer generation and traditionalists may explain the problems with their experience and help the patients to recover fast, and the employees from generation Y and generation Z may provide new technology-related ideas. The combination of traditional and contemporary approach enhances innovation and productivity.