The Importance Of Intercultural Communication

It is important for policy makers to create services that are culturally sensitive since the United States is a culturally diverse country; moreover, Healthcare professionals needs to be culturally competent so that they can guide policy makers in making sustainable systems for individual communities. “Efforts to improve cultural competence among health care professionals and organizations would contribute to improving the quality of health care for all consumers” (GeorgeTown Health Policy Institutes, 2004, para 31). Language barrier is another culture issue that prevents the community from getting the care that they deserve. “Cultural and language differences and socioeconomic status interact with and contribute to low health literacy, defined as the inability to understand or act on medical/therapeutic instructions” (Shaw, Huebner, Armin, Orzech, & Vivian, 2009, p.1). There should be health policy addressing this issue because of the confusion and inappropriate treatment that many

This research is being submitted on September 16, 2010, for Vicky Philips English class at Rasmussen College by Carl Hooks

Cultural competency has increasingly been recognized as an important part of healthcare. Cultural competency is more than being ‘politically correct.’ It is an important part of ensuring that care is effective. Healthcare advice cannot be disseminated in a cookie-cutter fashion but rather must be conveyed in a way so that patients understand care instructions and genuinely understand the need to fulfill them. With this in mind, diversity awareness and education must be integrated into the education of all healthcare professionals from bottomof their careers. “A consistent body of research indicates a lack of culturally competent care directly contributes to poor patient outcomes, reduced patient compliance, and increased health disparities,

The field of cross-cultural care mainly focuses on the ability to communicate in an effective way so that proper health care is provided to patients with from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. Unfortunately, there is no empirical literature comparing the effectiveness of different models of cross-cultural care and communication. However, there is a strong empirical evidence which shows that educating health care clinicians in cross-culture care can significantly improve skills, knowledge and attitude. (9, 10)

Healthcare workers and leaders must bring awareness to ethnic disparities within the communities; this can be done by educating providers on cultural diversity. Healthcare workers need to have the ability to communicate and understand patients from an array of cultural backgrounds. Negative stereotypes of AA may unintentionally persuade healthcare providers who are unfamiliar with this diverse population to provide low-quality care. “Even though the impact on health care of cultural differences between racial groups is recognized, less is known about dissimilarity within ethnic groups, especially concerning cultural factors that shape health beliefs (Rovner, Casten, & Harris, 2013, p. 29).” The absence of diversity and cultural competency in health care hinders the quality of care provided.

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.

Cultural competence plays a significant role in health care delivery. There is a lack of cultural competence in the U.S. heath care. Despite current effort to deal with the issue, the problem still exist and many patients are suffering from it impact. Many people are not being able to get adequate care due to the lack of communication, languages, beliefs, values, perspective, and customs. Cultural competence barriers are critical in reducing health disparity. Those barriers include: lack of diversity in the healthcare settings, lack of system of care that can address the needs of various populations, inadequate communication between healthcare providers and patients of distinct ethnic, racial, language, belief, customs, religious, and cultural backgrounds.

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

As the population of the United States continues to become more diverse, healthcare providers should effectively communicate with each patient regardless of their culture, nationality, religion or socioeconomic status. Nurses and other providers should be delivering patient centered care that is culturally competent. “Culture also includes the integrated pattern of thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions associated, wholly or partially, with racial, ethnic, or linguistic groups, as well as with religious, spiritual, biological, geographical, or sociological characteristics” (Lamb, 2014, p. 132). Nurses are caring for a wide variety of culturally diverse

With the increasing immigrant population a third barrier affecting access to health care is a cultural barrier. Culture barriers can include values and beliefs, language and race and ethnicity. Health beliefs and behavior can become a barrier when patients decide not to seek medical treatment and instead turn to home remedies and healers when treating illnesses. Approximately 10% of Americans speak a language other than English and can be classified ad being limited in their proficiency. For these patients language becomes a barrier and they are less likely to receive optimal medical treatment (Flores, 2006). Horton and Johnson (2010) stress the importance of communication in reducing disparities and increasing the trust of patients in the health care system. As reported by the American College of Physicians, evidence reveals that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to receive inferior care when compared with non-minorities. This occurs even when minorities have access to insurance and adequate income (Racial and ethnic disparities in health care, 2010).

In a culture as diverse as the United States it is of utmost importance that individuals in settings such as the health care field learn to communicate with people from different cultures. This type of setting offers many chances for misunderstanding, miscommunication, and mistrust. It is imperative for the health care field to have an effective strategy to minimize these negative consequences of poor intercultural communication. One must also remember when implementing a communication strategy that there are many elements that effect the experience; cultural variations, personal dignity, and interpersonal relationships. An effective intercultural

Today, we live in a culturally diverse society due to globalization. As our world grows, expands and become increasingly more interconnected, the need for effective interpersonal communication among differing cultures has become apparent. When people from different cultures interact with one another there is intercultural communication because different cultures create different interpretation and expectations about what is seen as competent behaviors that will enable the construction of shared meanings.

Intercultural communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and communicate appropriately and effectively across a wide array of cultural contexts. That is to say, for an individual to be considered an intercultural communicator they must understand other’s cultures as well as they understand their own, and apply this understanding to communication (Chen 1-2). With the increasing diversity at the workplace, school and other social settings, it has become increasingly important to learn how to communicate with people from a diverse array of cultures. More importantly, adapting to a more effective intercultural communication competence model provides us with learning opportunities occasioned by the interaction with people from other backgrounds. The intercultural communication competence model comes with some key components including tolerance for uncertainty, self-knowledge, and motivation. The greatest and most important of these aspects is motivation. An individual must be willing to foster relationships with people from a different cultural background. If an individual lacks the willingness to promote intercultural relationships, then other aspects of the intercultural communication model become moot.

You know that feeling of home whether it’s with family members or even your loved ones? I don’t think that home is something that is automatically there, I believe that it is something that’s created. I learned that lesson through the eyes of one of my older friends who came from India with his brother when he was 16 in order to make a living. My friend Vikas, told me everything he had to do and the struggles he conquered in order to make his own successful business here in the U.S. Some things he told be reminded me of interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and intracultural communication. He had to have a lot of communication with his friend who also happened to be from India and some new friends and colleagues he met through his journey. Of course there was homesickness and the occasional depression, but that didn’t stop him from creating his now successful business.

Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender, social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?