Summary: Cultural Competence Training

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.,

These cultural expectations could affect relationships with clients and co-workers in the form of their families involvement, body language, gender preferences and so on. It is very important that health workers learn to be innovative and flexible when working with people from other cultural backgrounds.

The article that I chose is Improving Cultural Competence to Reduce Health Disparities for priority Populations. This topic is relevant to social work because it is talking about cultural competence in the health care system and the one major skill that social workers need is cultural competency. This article is also relevant to social work because it talks about the importance of cultural competence in reducing disparities through culturally sensitive and unbiased quality care and since the social work field is all about treating everyone equally and fairly, this article falls right under its relevance. It continues to talk about programs to improve the knowledge of providers on cultural competency and general approaches that have been utilized in creating educational interventions to address cultural competence. This is great because social workers are never done learning, it is always important to train social worker on how to be culturally competent, specially because the populations being served are very diverse therefore, there should always be a way to train service providers on how to have cultural awareness.

One of the most integral parts of cultural competency is the process of successfully becoming culturally competent. After synthesizing available research on the topic I have constructed four main steps in becoming culturally competent. Those include self-awareness, understanding various aspects of the culturally diverse population for whom you care for, practice evidence based medicine as it relates to culturally diverse populations and continuing education (Kodjo, 2009; Purnell, 2012).

Cultural competency is found within different settings however, the setting which will be discussed in this paper will apply to a school setting. A school setting is where social workers “enhance the social and emotional growth and academic outcomes of all students” (SSWAA, n.d.). Furthermore, social workers not only work with students but also, work with parents, school administration, food department, special needs department, and school health services (nursing department). In conclusion, in this paper the culturally competent social work practice of working with the Latino community will be further discussed and analyzed.

After taking the self-assessment survey for quality and culture, I would like to improve and understand how cultural competence can have a real impact on clinical outcomes. Taking from some of the questions I answered wrong, it make me wants to be cultural competent. There are a few questions I am surprised and shocked, that I answered them incorrectly. I do understand that with training, I will start to gain cultural competence but it will take consistent individual practice on my part to develop and maintain individual cultural competence. Cultural competence can lead to, health literacy, health equity, and fewer diagnostic errors, which might help the patient expand their choices and access high quality medical providers because patient

Nurses can use the process, of diverse assessment, to gather information that identifies what is culturally important to the patient. Through anticipatory planning, the competent nurse can effectively work within the cultural context of an individual’s specific needs. This process can help the nurse to better understand, plan, and evaluate towards the overall health and wellness of the patient. Considerations such as lack of understanding, gaps in provisions of health insurance, lack of culturally sensitive care, and misunderstanding of cultural norms and values are all barriers that patients face routinely. Therefore, to help dissolve some of these challenges, community health promotion and maintenance programs can be researched, planned, and built to provide cultural competent care for a whole community (Andrews & Boyle,

The way a person thinks about health, “whether that is our ‘philosophy’, our ‘worldview’, our ‘framework’ influences what we do as individuals in practice,” as well as how we deliver the health service. These elements allow us to think about healthcare in our own culturally acceptable way, this isn’t always an acceptable way of delivering the service to people with views different to our own. Cultural competence is an approach that aids in influencing the service and the education of healthcare professionals. (Taylor, K., & Guerin, P., 2010).

Emphasis on cultural sensitivity and awareness is most efficacious in resolving cultural competency because the solution is both practical and simple. By providing training programs within health care settings that specifically focus on cultural sensitivity and awareness, physicians will learn to respond effectively to their Hispanic patients’ needs that show knowledge of their cultural differences. “One-size-fits all” types of prevention and treatment models cannot be applied to Hispanic patients and expect beneficial outcomes, thus “the challenge is for physicians to move beyond their belief systems and values and expand their world views to validate how others function”

Hallmarks of cultural competence, including role development and self-discovery, play an instrumental part in the cultural diversity within an organization as a whole. Diversity stems from the top, from CEO’s and executive boards, and trickles down to employees and patients. However, one thing I learned in this course is that people hold biases that they are unaware of and that cultural competence does not happen overnight. With this acquired knowledge, it has been brought to my attention about which implicit biases I hold and how I can work to eliminate them. Secondly, language access services, as an aspiring speech-language pathologist, play a direct role in my future career because I want to give a voice to the often misunderstood. Regarding effective communication, “good interpretation and good translation go a long way toward solving cross-cultural communication problems and language barriers in health care” (Dreachslin, Gilbert & Malone, 2013, p. 289). These services, through interpreters or voice-assisted devices, provide better opportunities to blend cultures and understand the tradition and beliefs of diverse populations. These two topics were just samplings of the information discussed, but they stuck out to me on a personal level, while pushing me to promote cultural competence and understanding beyond this course in all my future workplace

The diversity in the United States continues to grow, increasing the demand of creating more cultural competent programs. Health outcomes are addressed by race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. In research. race and ethnicity are potential predictors for a particular outcome. There is need for more research studies in order to provide an understanding of the different needs among ethnic minority groups. An abundance of research studies aggregates health data of different origin groups such as Hispanics or Asian/Pacific Islanders. The method is used in order to offer a result of a large population that may have multiple subgroups. Therefore, some may argue that aggregating results provides a more feasible process in analyzing a large ethnic

Did you know that I appreciate your positive attitude and that reflects during class on how you approach other class mates and how you relate to their experiences. In regards of your post here I agree that Cultural Competencies are a set of beliefs that needs to be taught and passed on from an early age and preferable long before people are taking courses that relate to Human Services and working with different populations. While class room and work experiences are a great start I question if it is enough when a worker in this field goes home after 8 hours and relapses back into her or his own cultural experiences. While some of us experience other diversities and cultures during our practicum site it might also be effective to eat and sleep

Cultural competency is increasingly important in healthcare today. In America today, we are facing a lot of tension between cultures today. America is a very diverse country with many cultures co-existing and in order to properly care for patients professionals need to be able to understand and tend to their cultural needs. Whether it be a difference in language, understanding that someone is a veteran and how that may affect them psychologically, or any other set of circumstances that surround a specific culture. Having the knowledge and resources that cater to different cultures makes for better experiences across the board and, consequently, makes for more effective healthcare visits.

The growing cultural changes in the United States provide opportunities and challenges in healthcare for providers, systems, and policy makers. There is a growing consensus amongst healthcare workers that it is necessary to produce and provide culturally competent services. Cultural competence is defined as “the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients” (Seeleman et al, 2015). A major topic of discussion amongst health professionals at industry conferences is the improvement of health outcomes and quality of care- specifically the contribution of culturally competent cares towards the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. More and more Plans to move the health care system towards the goal of cultural competence is being realized due to the health implications of being stagnant (Seeleman et al, 2015).

Cassandra, thank you for sharing your diversity reflection. I directly connect with your statement “Diversity allows us to embrace every individual’s uniqueness and look at them for who they are and not compare them to societies mold of the ideal person”. Often time’s health care is focused directly on “textbook research”. The truth of the matter is, yes “textbook research” is valuable within evidence based practice, and however, patients from different cultures need application of “textbook research” molded to fit within their culture not just medical culture. The journal article, Dignity, equality and diversity: an exploration of how discriminatory behaviour of healthcare workers affects patient dignity, “All healthcare workers should understand