Cultural Competency Case Study

Critically analyse one of the main challenges, barriers, and enablers for cultural competence in health care when working in a cross-cultural environment.

Cultural competence in health care describes the ability to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors, including tailoring health care delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural and linguistic needs. The need for healthcare systems to increase cultural competence and personalize care for ethnic patient minorities should not be ignored. Healthcare systems should promote better understanding and communication between diverse ethnic patients and caregivers. Hospitals should design a system that caters to the needs of all the populations they serve and not just apply a one-size-fits-all approach. Becoming a culturally competent health care organization is a critical component in reducing health care disparities.

Culture has more than one definition. It can be defined as the language spoken throughout a group of people or even the beliefs practiced. In the professional field of nursing, nurses are required to do more than administer medication or change bandages on a patient. To be able to fulfill a nurse’s job requirements, a nurse must learn to be culturally competent. Cultural competency in the professional field of nursing means to care and respect the patient whether or not the health care provider is in agreement with the patient’s decisions.

While examining the life of the Lee family, it was easy to identify that Hmong culture is much different than Western culture today. The Lee’s faced many adversities that not only affect their lives but the life of their ill daughter Lia. By analyzing culture, stigma, prevention, and implications, one can begin to see how the Hmong culture collides in the care of Lia.

The purpose of this paper is to inform readers on the culturally competent strategies that ameliorate health disparities in this country. Over the years health issues have increase rapidly. There are different ethnic backgrounds shows that their health plays a big role culturally and also diversity.

The text list several factors that contribute to healthcare disparities, social, economic status, access to medical care, lack of insurance, unemployment, lack of knowledge of healthcare processes and procedures within society, transportation issues and many other factors that contribute to healthcare disparities. Being knowledgeable of cultural competency has several advantages, cultural competence provides relief to the patient when the patient feels comfortable with their physician a bond is developed and patients are less likely to file malpractice claims. Displaying cultural competency increases the quality of services and patient satisfaction.

Miscommunication, medication errors, and lack of compliance commonly occur in the healthcare field. These are just a few of the errors that occur due to the patient being from a different culture than the physician or healthcare worker. Those three errors alone have a huge impact on our healthcare today. If we could have a better understanding of other cultures that are different from our own we could have a dramatic decrease in errors and a great increase in healthcare participation. Training must be completed and must be done in more than one way. The first step is to make sure that all physicians and health care workers get the same nationwide training that focuses on improving cultural competence. How this is completed must be done in more than one way (Horwitz, 2001).

Competency is something education and care services and educators strive for constantly. It is what a service must demonstrate to prove it is meeting or exceeding the National Quality Standard. But there is a special type of competency that all services must achieve to deliver high quality education and care to all children—cultural competency. Cultural competence is an essential practice of both the Early Years Learning Framework and the Framework for School Aged Care—My Time, Our Place. It is based on the principle contained in both frameworks—respect for diversity. Can educators and services ever truly become culturally competent? Many would say that achievement of this competency is always just beyond grasp. That is why the

Cultural competence is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the individual health care professionals when they treat individual patients who are from different race, ethnicity, and religion and diverse backgrounds. In the U.S, some patients receive equal treatment in the health care facilities, but others receive unequal treatment because they are from diverse backgrounds. In the article, “Cultural Clues” Melissa Hansen focuses on the importance of culturally competent workforce- (nurses, technicians, and doctors) who can recognize cultural differences to allow effective communication with patients. The culturally competent health care workers also include the community health workers- (community health promoters, village health workers, and lay health advisers). In fact, the lack of understanding between the healthcare workers and patients is resulting in an estimated one-third of patients who do not adhere to prescribed medication regimens. This condition leads not only to serious complication and more hospitalizations, but also is costing the U.S. health system an estimated $100 billion to $290 billion every year (Hansen 22). Necessarily, the health care workforce needs to improve this state to reduce disparities.

Cultural Competency is a topic that resonates greatly with me, partly, because I am an immigrant myself; the biggest part, however, is that in the last 5 years I have been actively involved in the orphanage work around the world. I consider orphaned children one of the most vulnerable populations. The country I visited the most (may be 12-15 times) is Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Stage 4 focuses on the rationale for providing culturally competent health care to refugee's. Cultural competence relates to a set of behaviours or attitudes that enable the health care system to provide a high quality of equitable care to all groups within society (Germov, 2014). Based on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) a refugee is defined as someone who

Cultural competency is especially important in health care because there is an increase immigrant. In 2015 the UK alone received 558,000 immigrants. (Full Fact Charity 2015). The increase in diverse cultures brings about new

Anderson, L.M., Scrimshaw, S.C., Fullilove, M.T., Fielding, E. J., Normand, J..(2003). Culturally Competent Health care Systems: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Preventative Medicine. Vol.

As nurses, we adjust our care accordingly to each patient. It is vital that we not only assess our patients physically, but assess all aspects of their lives, including their cultures. For this paper I will discuss the key components of a comprehensive cultural assessment. I will also choose two of the key components and discuss my own culture and how it affects my attitude to culturally diverse care. Last, I will identify two nursing diagnoses that would relate to a patient with a culture other than my own, as well as give proper interventions.

This report is designed to outline and explain the benefits to both indigenous Australians and healthcare workers (specifically Radiographers) of providing culturally competent care. In radiography, like all healthcare settings culturally competent care is essential for patient comfort and experience. To provide culturally competent care one must first understand the history of the Indigenous Australians health and factors that have had an influence on it. Health care workers must be educated to have an understanding of the culture and beliefs of the indigenous Australians and Torres Strait islander population and how they may differ from European Australians. Understanding how to effectively communicate with Indigenous Australians and avoid unintentional offence creates ease and comfort for both the healthcare workers and Indigenous Australians.