Nurse Leadership Challenges

The increasing population of immigrants in the United States has contributed to health disparities in the health care system. Cultural competence can remove health disparities by eliminating personal biases, and treating every person with respect. Simply recognizing and accepting different cultures is not enough, one must be able to consistently recognize and understand the differences in order to be culturally competent. Knowledge and culturally competent practices are a must for nurses to deliver quality care in our rapidly changing multicultural world (Edelman, 2014 p. 25).

Cultural competency is the capacity of people or services to include ethnic/cultural considerations into all aspects of their work related to health promotion, disease prevention and other and other healthcare interventions (Cultural competence is important for several reasons, (Purnell, 2008a).First, it can contribute in the development of culturally sensitive practices which can reduce barriers that effect treatment in healthcare settings. Second, it can promote understanding, which is detrimental in cultural competence assessment, to know whom, the individuals known as the primary care provider and whom they view as the primary healer, can attribute to the promotion of trust and increase the person’s interest in participating

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.

Cultural competency is becoming essential in American healthcare with the increasing and diversification of immigration. The Department of Homeland Security, 2014 statistics indicates over 750,000 immigrants received naturalization in the US. These naturalized citizens represent over 20 countries varying from Hispanic, Indian, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern cultures. A change in the way American healthcare treats these cultures is necessitated to provide efficient care and achieve positive outcomes. Douglas et al. (2014) guidelines are to empower patients to help diminish the inequities of their own healthcare. The guidelines for culturally competent care are meant to guide the nurse, nurse educators, and nurse managers in their competent treatment of persons of other cultures. These guidelines mandate a nurse use education, self-assessment and reflection, and diversification of the workforce to meet the demands. The ten guidelines are knowledge of culture, education and training in culturally competent care, critical reflection, cross-cultural communication, culturally competent practice, cultural competence in health care systems and organizations, patient advocacy and empowerment, multicultural workforce, cross-cultural leadership, and evidence-based practice and research.

Cultural competency not only encompasses race or ethnicity, but a quality of care for all individuals. Studies illustrate that cultural competency is currently lacking in the health care field; this results in the disparities that exist among the minority population with low

Cultural Competence is when you bring employees together of various cultural backgrounds as well as those that have different values, beliefs, Attitudes and behaviors to form a system that helps them work together effectively (Ingram, 2012). Cultural Competency is very important in any work environment because it opens up communication between co-workers in conversations so that they can work together without barriers. When health providers and workers can come together to help each other better understand patients and their different beliefs as well as value them it helps in serving each patients unique needs (Campinha-Bacote, 2011). Some of the patient that may fall under cultural competency are those

Campinha- Bacote and colleagues describes the components for cultural competence in healthcare. These includes cultural ; a) knowledge, b) awareness, c) skills, d) encounter and e) desire. Cultural awareness refers to self-examination as well as in-depth exploration of an individual cultural as well as professional background. I am able to explore my own cultural healthcare values and beliefs. This is because understanding another person's does not guarantee that one will become cultural competent. I am now able to use the cultural awareness assessment to assess my personal level of cultural awareness, and to get an insight on the understanding of my cultural values and beliefs

Unfortunately, the lack of culturally competent healthcare providers such as nurses, leads to negative patient outcomes and low quality healthcare. Culturally competent nurses are required to adequately treat our culturally diverse population. Nurses are frontline patient advocates and education and training in cultural competence is an intervention that will implement positive changes in healthcare delivery in the U.S.

Culturally competent care has fast become a byword in health care with the increasing global migration of populations including healthcare providers topmost of whom are nurses. There abound a number of definitions of culture and competence in current literature provided by multiple disciplines and organizations. Lehman, Fenza and Smith (n.d.) refers to culture as “the learned patterns of behavior and range of beliefs” which includes ways of life, norms and values, social institutions attributed to a specific group and passed on through generations . While competence implies capacity to function and translates into behavior appropriate application of knowledge and attitudes. Giger and companions (as cited in Loftin, Hartin, Branson, & Reyes,

As the United States population continues to follow the trend of increasing diversity, the need for more culturally competent healthcare professionals increases as well. According to some of the leading experts in health care policy, cultural competency in health care can be described as the ability of systems and/or healthcare professionals to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors, including tailoring delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural, and linguistic needs (Betancourt, J.R., Green, A.R., & Carrillo, J.E., 2002). These researchers assert that there are essentially three specific barriers to cultural competency in the health care setting: lack of diversity in health care’s leadership and workforce, poorly designed systems of care that fall short of meeting the needs of diverse patient populations, and poor communication between providers

Cultural competence embraces: ... gaining knowledge of different cultural practices and world views. Developing skills for communication and interaction across cultures.[ There is excellent evidences shows that cultural competence training improves the knowledge of health profession), and good evidence that cultural competence training improves the attitudes and skills of health professionals and impacts patient satisfaction Cultural competence training shows promise as a strategy for improving the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of health professionals. . Directly interacting with patients from different cultural backgrounds helps nurses increase their cultural competence. s. Health care providers must possess the ability and the knowledge to communicate and to understand how health behaviors are influenced by culture. Having this ability and knowledge can eliminate barriers to the delivery of health care.

Cultural competency is an important factor when working with patients in health care, however to be culturally competent, is to understand and communicate with your patient to feel cared for and understand that you’re there to help and not judge. Utilizing Cultural competency to your advantage to promote better results with patients that include, participation, learning, and higher attendance.

Cultural competence requires culture recognition, knowledge and understanding for each individual patients care. “Cultural competence in health care describes the ability of systems to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors, including tailoring delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural, and linguistic needs” (Betancourt, Green, and Carrillo, p. 5). The ability to deliver culturally

In an article written by Drevdahl, Canales, and Dorcy, the authors suggest that although the idea of cultural competence is impactful in nursing, the ability of nurses to move from the theory of cultural competence to actually putting it into practice has been difficult (2008, p. 16). According to the 2011 National Healthcare Disparities Report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), racial and ethnic minorities usually do not have adequate access to healthcare and more often receive a poor quality of care (2012). The end goal of cultural competence is to enable the health care system, and those employed in healthcare, to deliver high quality care to all individuals regardless of their race, ethnicity, culture, or language background, and therefore reducing health

* A more culturally diverse patient population is requiring providers to establish cultural competency by having improved knowledge of different cultural perspectives