Cultural Diversity in the Healthcare Field Essay examples

The United States is a nation of immigrants; they have virtually every culture of the world within its borders. Due to this reason, there must be a certain level of cultural competency within its people. A comparison and contrast will be made to compare the Hispanic cultural views on medical care to the American cultural views toward medical care. I chose to explore Hispanic culture because of my background but most importantly due to its richness of unique characteristics. I will provide an overview on how heredity, culture, and environment can influence behavior in the medical office. Furthermore, I will express my opinion about why a medical assistant,

The nursing profession has a long history of assessing and placing patient needs first when giving care. The tenets of nursing practice include meeting those needs using individualized care by collaborating with the patient, family, and health care team members. (American Nurses Association, 2010). The concept of transcultural nursing aligns with these tenets because it calls on nurses to provide patient-centered care by taking into account the patient’s background, beliefs, culture and values. In this paper, I will identify the factors that made it necessary to develop the transcultural nursing theory, describe the meaning of diversity and its relationship to the field of nursing, and explain three ways that I provide culturally sensitive care to my patients.

In response to reading this book, I will be utilizing more the services of professional interpreters during the physical therapy session with the patient rather than using ad hoc interpreters such as family, friends, hospital clerks and housekeepers. Professional interpreters improve the quality of clinical care for LEPs to level that for those patients without barriers in language (Gray & Hardt, 2017). Meanwhile, ad hoc interpreters might be bilingual but they have no medical training (Gray & Hardt, 2017).

80% of American hospitals encounter LEP patients frequently (ie daily or weekly). Yet less than 30% of U.S. hospitals have quality improvement efforts underway to improve the quality of their language access programs.

Medical professionals should be banned from using biased interpreters for patients that have limited to no English proficiency. One of the most important things to have in the medical field, is a good relationship and good communication between the doctor and patient. People of all languages and cultures live in the United States, and they also must all see a doctor. There are major communication issues between doctors and patients with limited to no English proficiency. Doctors must be able to know and communicate with their patients. Patients must be able to know and understand their medical diagnosis and what treatment options are available, but that is not always possible. This issue brings in interpreters. There are many cases where interpreters should have been used but weren’t, ways to develop a strategy in practices for interpreters, and boundaries when using interpreters in the medical field.

Most people that speak English have little or no problem understanding his or her healthcare provider when they seek medical services; this situation is not as common as it was just 30 years ago. The continued growing lack of quality health care caused by the language barrier has produced federal regulations to help bridge this gap, helping to better ensure all patients receive equal quality care. It is imperative that the patient have options to choose from to remove or decrease the patient-provider miscommunication barrier.

This quality improvement study is to enhance healthcare outcomes for LEP patients through improved language assistance, to patients with LEP. The intervention is focus on the utilization of medical trained Spanish speaking interpreters for randomly chosen 50 Hispanic LEP adult patients, ages between 40 to 69 years old, with diabetes type (DM) II, who had received primary care services, more that two visits and less than four visits, at Birmingham Health Care (BHC) in Birmingham Alabama (AL) in past six months. The patient will be provided with a questionnaire written in English

To determine the impact of language barriers on informed consent documentation in a clinical setting. We found from different research patients who spoke English were almost twice as likely as patients with limited English proficiency to have documentation of informed consent for 3 invasive medical procedures while hospitalized at a large urban hospital with on-site interpreter services. The relationship between primary language and informed consent documentation was not affected by patient age, gender, primary diagnosis, procedure, or medical service. The differences we found in rates of informed consent documentation between LEP and English-speaking patients are substantial and suggest disparities in the process of informed consent. Whereas

These individuals often face many barriers in their healthcare. The biggest barrier is the language. Most of the individuals that are residing in the United States do not speak fluent English. The older ones often rely on their younger family members to help translate when going to see their provider. So when these patients go for their check-ups it is often a struggle for both the patient and the provider to communicate. Not just as in the aspect of

barriers in healthcare because they speak a different language and are not able to communicate

Language barriers between physicians and patients have been associated with a decrease in patient and provider satisfaction, lack of preventative health services, increased diagnostic testing, repeat visits to the ER, extended hospital stays, increased number and severity of medical errors and problems obtaining informed consent (Gany et. al, 312). A cross-sectional review study was conducted by Schwei, and others, in recent years. It was found that the awareness of the need for better language support services in health care has increased since 2003. However, the progress has been limited due to a small percentage of health care providers who have implemented services for LEP patients

a system that encourages and supports a self-perpetuating alcohol-induced health issue where each generation produces another generation that is prone to alcohol abuse. Understanding the cultural context specific to each individual patient will help a healthcare provider understand the mechanisms and systems at play that support the alcoholic behaviors of the patient. As a result, this will help in the establishment and coming up with the best approach to address the health concern and the future of the patient in the community (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2009; Duran and Duran, 1995).

Diversity and multiculturalism have become an integration in today’s society. There has been constant change in the professional world from people of a diverse culture. “The changing demographics and economics of our growing multicultural world and the long-standing disparities in the health status of people from culturally diverse backgrounds have challenged health care providers and organizations to consider cultural diversity as a priority” (OJIN, 2003). In the field of public health and health education, it is imperative to understand cultural diversity and accept people for who they are. Sometimes we have to put our feelings and sensitivity aside and step outside of our boundaries to realize that change is constant. It’s also important

Hospitals should also provide interpreter services for people whose first language is not English. Language barrier is one of the most frequent cause which prevents the population from receiving efficient health care services. People who have language barrier have less access to health care and various preventive services. Also, the Ad hoc interpreters commonly used in clinical settings which include the family members, friends, strangers who are present in the office waiting area results in miscommunication and misdiagnosis of the patient's medical condition. This can be prevented by providing professional interpreter services in the hospitals. According to the guidelines issued by the Health Care Financing administration in August 2000, the

Patients admitted to CHLA have the luxury of having access to some of the country’s top technology, medical care and resources, and well-trained physicians. Even still, I did take note of the diversity of patients at the hospital and, in a few cases, the need for medical interpreters in order to adequately communicate with patients and/or their family members. In one particular case, I met a very sick 8-year-old Chinese boy with a cerebral hypoxic injury that presented with a severe bacterial pneumonia and inability to speak. The child’s father happened to speak very poor English that became evident within the first few minutes of conversation. The interns assigned to the case quickly realized the need for an interpreter which fortunately