The Bias Assessment Response Team, instituted in December, was created to give members of the UNMC and Nebraska Medicine community another way to report bias.
Cheryl Thompson, Ph.D., assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs/student affairs, said the new system, with input from both UNMC and Nebraska Medicine, was designed “to provide a much clearer vision of where people could go with complaints of bias” throughout the med center community.
“Bias is a nationwide issue right now, and UNMC recognized the importance of this,” she said.
“UNMC wanted to have a centralized place for both UNMC and Nebraska Medicine, so we could filter out the issues and determine what needed to be done. We also needed a group that was responsible for tracking reported issues so that we could identify potential trends and patterns and develop any necessary campus education.”
Reporting mechanisms include a website, under the Help icon on the UNMC mobile app, through the Compliance Hotline at 1-866-568-5430, or by contacting a member of the response team.
Dr. Thompson stressed that reporting could be anonymous, and mechanisms are in place to address bias issues at any level of the professional or academic community.
“The team was established to give people a visible way to report issues of bias,” she said. “We hope to be a resource for members of the UNMC and the Nebraska Medicine community.”