Cultural competence in healthcare

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Cultural Competence in Healthcare

Introduction

Cultural Competence in Healthcare refers to the adeptness of healthcare organizations

and healthcare providers to provide healthcare to patients whilst taking in consideration and

meeting the cultural and social requirements of these individuals. This is crucial when it

comes to providing healthcare because in addition to good quality of services, it is imperative

that patients and their cultures are respected and diversity inclusion is practiced in order to

provide all individuals and patients equal levels of healthcare, so as to reduce disparity and

also make access more available of higher quality healthcare to culturally, religiously or

socially diverse groups of people. This also includes creating a healthcare system as such that

it can cater to different linguistic and cultural needs. Thus, a healthcare organization or

system that is culturally competent would realize and incorporate the value of culture and

cross-cultural inclusivity, make sure that their employees have sufficient cultural knowledge

and would be able to sufficiently and quickly adapt their services to be able to cater to

different cultural and linguistic needs. (Betancourt, 2002) This is to ensure that healthcare is

not subject to disparity on the basis of race, ethnicity or social class.

In the United States, the population is becoming more diverse on the basis of

ethnicity, race and culture, day by day. However, all these sections of the population are still

subjected to disparity in various parts of the system, including healthcare. In the healthcare

system, nurses are at the forefront of this effort. Today, the US population consists of 37

percent of minorities an these are expected to increase to almost 60 percent in the next 40

years. A study found that even in the United States, a great number of the minorities are not

as likely to receive quality healthcare in times of need as compared to white Americans. If

this happens, patients can be seriously unhappy and dissatisfied. As mentioned before, a very

important cause of this dissatisfaction could result from the lack of effective communication

due to language. (Collins, 2002) This automatically leads to lower quality in healthcare.

Understanding cultural values is also very important in treating patients. Thus, cultural

competence in healthcare organizations requires the provider to be sensitive and responsive

to the cultural differences amongst patients.

This cultural competence starts at the reception and is imperative to be implemented

all the way to the doctor’s treatment. Even before interacting with the doctor, it may be

possible that patients feel uncomfortable if they feel they are not treated well, because they

are fearful of contacting the clinic or hospital, because they may be confused and unclear on

appointment and treatments or they may just generally feel uncomfortable. People with

special needs also face many issues, because parents or the patients may not want to call for

an appointment or advice due to communication issues, they may not follow up because of

lack of understanding or because the organization itself has not been able to acquire sufficient

information due to ineffective communication. (Druss, 2002) Thus, cultural competence in

healthcare aims to reduce all these problems and much more.

Vision Statements

The Vision Statement for a culturally competent healthcare organization would be

precise, memorable and would be very clear in conveying its meaning. Possible vision

statements for the organization as a culturally competent healthcare organization are as follows.

1) Solving every patient’s problems with our treatment and individual attention, so as to

enhance the patient experience and become experts of communication.

2) Striving to be a leading healthcare organization, not only providing quality healthcare

but also enabling ourselves to cater to a diverse population regardless of ethnicity,

gender, race or culture.

3) Striving to be a quality healthcare providing organization, focusing on every patient’s

needs and comfort individually, in order to meet their healthcare, social and cultural

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Cultural Competence in Healthcare Introduction Cultural Competence in Healthcare refers to the adeptness of healthcare organizations and healthcare providers to provide healthcare to patients whilst taking in consideration and meeting the cultural and social requirements of these individuals. This is crucial when it comes to providing healthcare because in addition to good quality of services, it is imperative that patients and their cultures are respected and diversity inclusion is practiced in order to provide all individuals and patients equal levels of healthcare, so as to reduce disparity and also make access more available of higher quality healthcare to culturally, religiously or socially diverse groups of people. This also includes creating a healthcare system as such that it can cater to different linguistic and cultural needs. Thus, a healthcare organization or system that is culturally competent would realize and incorporate the value of culture and cross-cultural inclusivity, make sure that their employees have sufficient cultural knowledge and would be able to sufficiently and quickly adapt their services to be able to cater to different cultural and linguistic needs. (Betancourt, 2002) This is to ensure that healthcare is not subject to disparity on the basis of race, ethnicity or social class. In the United States, the population is becoming more diverse on the basis of ethnicity, race and culture, day by day. However, all these sections of the population are s ...
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