Cultural Competency: Implicit Bias in Rehabilitation

Examine historical healthcare inequities and research on rehabilitation access, service use, functional recovery, and discharge outcomes. Through hospital, stroke, and hip-fracture examples, distinguish observed disparities from their possible causes and apply findings to individual clinical decisions. The emphasis is on careful evidence interpretation, documented function, and examination of assumptions that may affect care.

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish Bias and Disparities: Distinguish implicit bias, explicit institutional discrimination, and observed rehabilitation disparities.
• Explain Historical Foundations: Explain how hospital segregation, unethical research, and eugenics inform evaluation of healthcare access, trust, and disability-related assumptions.
• Interpret Rehabilitation Research: Interpret rehabilitation research findings while distinguishing odds from probability, association from causation, and statistical significance from clinical importance.
• Analyze Clinical Decisions: Analyze referral, prognosis, and discharge scenarios using individual functional findings, environmental demands, and available support.
• Select Functional Measures and Reviews: Select appropriate uses of standardized functional measures and service-delivery reviews to examine rehabilitation decisions.
• Evaluate Implicit-Bias Training Evidence: Evaluate the limitations of evidence concerning implicit-bias training and claims about its effects on patient outcomes.