Authors in this article asserted the position of American Nurses Association (ANA) in addressing disparities in the health care system. Because there is a social contract between the nursing profession and society, nurses continue to strive to fit the profession in meeting the public health care needs. Aware of the social change and multi-cultural presence in the United States, ANA appointed 40 expert nurses to revise the 2010 nursing scope and practice to include the cultural competency aspects. The result was the addition of the Standard 8: Culturally Congruent Practice. The Standard 8 is an evidence-based nursing practice that is according to the client’s values, beliefs, worldview, and practices.
In addition, the Standard 8 covers the
The CLPNBC Professional Standards relates to culturally safe nursing in many ways, specifically in the fourth professional standard which is labeled Ethical Practice. One of the indicators that is a good representation of this is “Respects and protects client worth, dignity, uniqueness and diversity” (CLPNBC, 2014). This indicator expresses that as LPNs we have the obligation to understand that different patients have a different backgrounds and this shouldn’t influence the proper and respectful care they deserve. A patient’s care (regardless of their personal preferences or ethical choices and backgrounds) should receive healthcare that shows their importance with no kind of segregation represented through a respectful and accepting manner. Another indicator is “Identifies the effect of own values, beliefs and experiences when providing nursing
In nursing school, students were introduced to the idea of cultural competence. It is a concept that I am familiar with due to my cultural background. Being respectful and aware of the beliefs and values of other traditions cannot be neglected and ignored. We are all global citizens that hold different views and perspectives, therefore leaders must equip themselves with the understanding that people expect and will act differently based on their cultural beliefs.
In other words, to be culturally competent, professionals must provide superior, respectful medical care to all patients. This must start with building an understanding of basic philosophies and value systems of different population groups. This is especially critical in the nursing field where much time is spent providing hands on care with each patient. A nurse must be sensitive to language differences, social cues and personal lifestyle choices
Studies show that nurses must be culturally competent in order to provide optimal care for their patients. For example, nurses who have knowledge about a patient’s religious culture may not be alarmed when they walk into
The Appalachian cultural group has faced many adversities related to low levels of education, poverty and health issues. In the following discussion, the Appalachian disparities will be examined and how these inequalities affect their health status, employment and education. Finally, two nursing interventions will be addressed to decrease the health disparities and the biggest nursing challenge that occurs when implementing these nursing interventions. There is a fairly large Appalachian population in Ohio and the Appalachia region extends crossing thirteen states within the United States. According to Giger & Davidhizar (2013), nine of the states have a large Appalachian culture with high rates of poverty, unemployment and low income.
Healthcare disparity can be explained as the gap created in the delivery of healthcare to communities which causes some communities to receive better healthcare than others. Some factors that can cause these disparities include race, socioeconomic status, location, and gender. Because of health care disparities, there are a lot of patients who are and will be at risk for many diseases such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension. These disparities negatively affect the overall cost of delivering quality healthcare and are issues that must be addressed by the people who know them best, the health care workers. Through the NURSE Corps Program I hope to help address these imbalances in underserved communities in various ways.
Today, health disparities among minority populations is a growing phenomenon that can be prevented with extensive research. A health disparity is a disease that differs greatly in occurrence among different populations. The focus in this critique will be on health disparities among minority populations in the United States, since little nursing research has been done in this area. The more research conducted on health disparities among minorities could improve the gap that exists between minority groups and prevalence of certain diseases. The two articles I chose to critique are Gaskin et al.
Cultural awareness allows a nurse to develop interventions that will decrease the health disparities with this cultural group. A nurse that strives in building a nurse/patient relationship that focuses on facts, spending time to understand their true illness, and seeks the opinions and advice of the family will overcome a history of mistrust with outsiders (Giger, 2013, p. 264). A second nursing intervention would be to provide dietary education and changes to their diet to decrease and treat problems associated with high blood pressure and diabetes. The biggest challenge to implementing these goals is the limited time to educate and teach these health illiterate individuals of the factors contributing to disease and health problems. This cultural group has limited knowledge and understanding of medical explanations of how illness occurs or how to prevent cardiovascular illness or diabetes (Giger, 2013, p.
Madeline Leininger’s Cultural Care Diversity and Universality Theory, deals with the impact of culture on health and healing. In health care today, a nurse must deal with people from many backgrounds, cultures, and ethnic origins. Transcultural nursing is practiced throughout nursing when caring for people from different cultures. The purpose of Leininger’s theory is to produce knowledge related to nursing care of people from diverse nationalities, who value their ethnic heritage and culture. Leininger’s theory recognized and understood cultural differences and similarities while caring for patients of different backgrounds.
Hi Moncy, I agree with you as you noted the increasing diversity of the nation brings opportunities and challenges to health care system, on the other side a culturally competent health care system helps to improve health outcomes and quality of care, which eliminate racial and ethnic disparities. foster advocacy for social justice and increase focus on global healthcare, the cultural competence class benefit diverse population to receive more satisfactory patient care, uplift social justice and increase global health as well cultural competency skills , make self-awareness among nursing workforce also provide an opportunity to staffing to learn and experience life from different perspectives and able to recognize each person has their own
If nurses lack of understanding regarding community demographics and cultural differences, they can have unintentional bias, and stereotype patients due to a lack of awareness of the cultural demographics of the community they serve (Camphinha-Bacote, 2011). Cultural competence is the understanding of different cultures and how that impacts the provision of patient care. Cultural competence in nursing is defined as one willingness or the desire to understand a patient’s culture, the ability to learn about a defined cultures belief system, and to work effectively as a healthcare provider understanding the dynamics of the patient’s culture as it relates to their relationships and care (Kardong-Edgren et Al.,
Health Care Disparities Health care disparities are unfortunate and being culturally competent is an essential step toward eliminating these inequalities. In this discussion, I will review what disparities are associated with the Appalachian culture and how they affect health status, employment, and education. I will also identify two nursing interventions that could be taken to help decrease the affect that health disparities have on the Appalachians and review what the biggest challenge would be when implementing the interventions. There are about 27 million people that live in the area defined as the Appalachian region, which spans 13 states.
Cultural competency: Indians Culture competency is defined as one has the knowledge, the abilities and the skill to deliver care congruent with the patient’s cultural beliefs and practices (Purnell, 2013). As a nurse or a health care provider, increasing ones consciousness of culture diversity improves the possibilities for health care practitioners to provide competent care (Purnell, 2013). Nurses and all health care providers should be aware of other cultures to provide the best care that they can for that individual. Developing a relationship with diverse cultural groups involves good interpersonal skills and the application of knowledge and techniques learned from the physical, biological, and social sciences as well as the humanities (Purnell, 2013). I am choosing to select the Indian culture for my first assignment.
Nursing is a responsibility to provide the finest care regardless of the patient’s age, race, religion, sex, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or their past. Nurses must keep up to date on education, new processes, policies and keep informed about new laws and regulations in healthcare, so outstanding healthcare can be administered. As a nurse, you have undertaken a responsibility to provide people the finest quality care that can possibly receive. It is a nurses’ duty to follow the code of ethics, to act
Culturally competent nurses advocates for patients regardless of cultural differences. Hollinger-Smith (n.d) “A health care professional who has learned cultural competence engages in assistive, supportive, facilitative, or enabling acts that are tailor-made to fit with individual, group, or institutional cultural values, beliefs, and lifeways in order to provide quality health care” (p. 2). Nurses look to profit from a better health care system and practice mutual respect, formality, thoughtfulness and overall good