Providing Culturally Competent Care Essay

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 competence is a group of similar manners, attitudes, and strategies that collaborate in a system, organization or among experts and facilitate that system, organization or those professions to perform efficiently in cross-cultural states. A culturally competent health and wellness program provides services that take action to past inequities, existed realities, varied values, behaviors, and beliefs. It adapts advances to gather the diverse requirements of multicultural populations. Cultural competency can be implemented into our health and wellness programs by training the staff and health care experts of the programs to understand a patient’s diverse values, behaviors, beliefs, and modify treatment to meet the patients' community,

Workshops, courses, and seminars have been implemented to improve cultural competency to effectively provide service delivery to diverse clients. One of the approaches by Delgado et al. (2013) used Inventory to Access the Process of Cultural Competency (IAPCC-R) to measure cultural competence levels. The training consisted of a single one hour session for a period of six months and then a follow up was measured after three months of completion.

When clinically assessing patients in care settings, it is paramount for health professionals to elicit pertinent information that could be crucial for delivery of care. This is particularly important in the United States because the increasing diversity in racial and ethnic composition of the population has presented cultural challenges that care givers must navigate to provide culturally competent service. Cultural competence during delivery of care requires sensitivity to the cultural, social, and linguistic needs of patients (Betancourt, Green, Carrillo, 2002). As a consequence, care providers need cultural assessment tools that will enable them

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

On the other hand, although the healthcare provider is able to speak their patient's language, providers often fail to consider the patient's education level and may at times use medical jargons that the patient may not understand, thus resulting in a failure to communicate with their patient. Healthcare provider may lack the skills and knowledge in understanding their patient's culture other than their own. This often results in the medical provider "pushing" their beliefs onto their patient and if the desired results are not realized, this results in mistrust of the healthcare provider and the healthcare system. To increase cultural competence among healthcare workers and increase the amount of minority's access to healthcare, medical schools and medical facilities are incorporating "Clinical Cultural Competence Interventions." The goal of this program is to provide "educational and training interventions to equip healthcare providers with the knowledge, tools, and skills to better understand and manage socio-cultural issues in the clinical encounter," (Betancourt, Green, Carrillo, and Ananeh-Firempong, 2003, p. 298). Again, although the guidebook is an excellent tool, to achieve the desired health outcomes, it is up to the provider or healthcare team to incorporate these evidence based practices into their

Through her research, Leininger established an outline to further explain the importance of culturally competent care and the challenges presented throughout societies and healthcare institutions. The most obvious need for cultural sensitivity is the ongoing immigration throughout the world. As more people from different parts of the world enter into one area, different cultures will be present. The people that migrate to a new region or country will have the expectation that respect will be shown for their beliefs, particularly in the healthcare setting. This includes the use of technological advances in medicine. Some cultures may not understand or trust the delivery of care that is based on new technology (Andrews & Boyle, 2016).

Interest in the subject of cultural and linguistic competency is beginning to reach the “tipping point” (Gladwell, 2002). Over the past two decades, there has been an “explosion” of interest in developing programs that meet the general, mental and oral health, as well as social service needs of the country’s increasingly diverse population. Cultural and linguistic competence initiatives are underway at the systems, organizational, and clinical levels in a variety of institutions. A growing number of federal agencies, foundations, and private organizations are supporting innovative educational, research, and service delivery services. The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), for example, has Centers for Excellence (COEs) that use a curriculum guide for integrating cultural and linguistic competency content, methods and evaluation into existing academic programs (HRSA, 2005).

Who is the person the nurse is caring for? Where is that person from? Does this person speak English, or understand what the caregiver is saying? What is this person’s cultural background? What are the health beliefs of this person, what are their illness beliefs and practices? These questions are answered differently depending upon the person and their heritage. As healthcare providers it is important to have a broad knowledge base in regards to different cultures and people’s practices to deliver effective health care. In 2006, the population of

The challenge that I would have to be overcome in able to provide culturally competent services to this family are as follows. The personal view that just because you believe in a greater being, and praying for better health thru prayer alone, will not work. Even though there have been some exceptions. Science has proven that vastly of illnesses and diseases can be cured thru medicine, some medicines can prolong the life of the patient but cannot control the disease, while other medicine can stop the progress of the disease but not cure it, furthermore there are a few illnesses for which no cure has been found yet. I have not memorized the Bible, nor read half of the book, but I know that there is a phrase which states “help yourself so I can help you”.

The classic definition for culture was proposed by Tylor (1871/1958) and still commonly cited: Culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and many other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (p. 1). This definition focuses on attributes that are acquired through growing up or living in a particular society, rather than through biological inheritance (Kottak, 2002). In Giger and Davidhizar’s (1991) Model for transcultural care, culture was defined as a patterned behavioral response that develops over time as a result of imprinting the mind through social and religious structures and intellectual and artistic manifestations.

In order to provide culturally appropriate care, an examination of one's personal views, beliefs, and prejudices must be examined. The first portion of this paper will examine my personal values, beliefs, biases, and prejudices. The remaining paper will analyze the African American culture relating to the Ginger and Davidhizar's Transcultural Assessment Model cited in Hood (2010). This model uses six key cultural elements that include communication, space, social organization, time, environment, and biological variations. This model provides a systematic approach for assessing culturally diverse clients. I will also discuss an aspect of care that I would

Patient assessment is the foundation of healthcare planning, so the cultural assessment is essential when providing care to an ethnic patient or community. The definition of cultural assessment is the nursing examination of an individual or family group that considers health-related beliefs, values, and behaviors. This information is invaluable when applying the five steps of culturally congruent care: assessment, mutual goal setting, care plan development, intervention, and evaluation. Nurses should be cognizant that the assessment includes process and content. The process is the approach that the nurse uses during the assessment and it includes verbal and non-verbal communication skills and the sequence in which the information is gathered. The content of a comprehensive assessment includes cultural

Every country has different beliefs, values and standard practices. Personally, being able to see these differences in Shanghai, it will broaden my view on patient care and the healthcare system in a multicultural perspective. As there is such a rich cultural diversity in Canada, it is important for nurses caring for childbearing women to understand Chinese cultural beliefs and practices. The post-partum period is considered a time of vulnerability for the mother and infant. Nurses need to develop knowledge of traditional practices, sensitivity to ethnic differences, and incorporate women’s beliefs in order to effectively provide effective evidence-based, culturally competent care.

Culture is normally associated with norms, values, and traditions that are passed from one generation to the next. It has also been equated with ethnicity, race, nationality, and language. However, according to Potter, Perry, Stockert, and Hall (2017), there are many other aspects of culture that include: gender, sexual orientation, location, class, and immigration status (p.102). A person’s culture affects their access to education, housing, employment, and health care.