How Can Education Be A Solution For Increase Cultural Competency?

It have been proven effective in providing services to individuals from a wide spread of diverse backgrounds. Cultural competence is understanding a set of congruent behaviors, knowledge, attitudes and policies that enable effective work in cross-cultural situations (Bazron, Cross, Dennis, & Isaacs, 1989). This means that an individual trains to understand different cultural groups. Cultural competency training is beneficial to all human service organizations because it aims to increase the knowledge and skills to improve one’s ability to efficiently serve different cultural groups therefore eliminating biases and

I have learned that it is important that educators  and health providers be trained on cultural competency to understand the population they are serving. Marks, Sims, and Osher (King, Sims, & Osher, n.d.) define cultural competency  as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross–cultural situations" ( as cited in Cross et al., 1989; Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991). Health providers and educators should investigate demographic patterns or trends in the place where they live and work. This brings awareness of the types of cultures that they might come across when they are working with people. Organizations should integrate and implement policies that promote the value of  diversity, self-assessment, manage the dynamics of difference, acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge, and adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve (Georgetown  University, 2004). Georgetown University (2004) also stresses that culture competency grows gradually and is always open for improvement.

Cultural Competence is important for many reasons. First, it can help develop culturally sensitive practices which can in turn help reduce barriers that affect treatment in health care settings. Second, it can help build understanding, which is critical in competence, in order wards knowing whom the person

Have you ever been to the doctor and don't quite understand what the provider is telling you, or are you a healthcare worker and you don't understand your patients? Should the healthcare provider get diversity training or should they maybe learn new languages? More than ever before, healthcare professionals are subjected to dealing with a number of immense and different cultural diversities. While diversity is often a term used to refer specifically to cultural differences, diversity applies to all the qualities that make people different. Diversity requires more than knowing about individual differences and it key for overcoming cross-cultural barriers in healthcare.

In the field of human services, “cultural competency” has become a common buzz meant to address in part the . The intention being, that workers are able to achieve some level of knowledge and training that prepares them to work with

Cultural competence in health care describes the ability to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors, including tailoring health care delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural and linguistic needs. The need for healthcare systems to increase cultural competence and personalize care for ethnic patient minorities should not be ignored. Healthcare systems should promote better understanding and communication between diverse ethnic patients and caregivers. Hospitals should design a system that caters to the needs of all the populations they serve and not just apply a one-size-fits-all approach. Becoming a culturally competent health care organization is a critical component in reducing health care disparities.

The core claims of Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-Garcia include the existence of power imbalances between patients and health professionals, the high impact of the relationship between non-financial barriers and a patient’s view of care, and the false sense of preparedness that traditional teaching of cultural competence provides. The core claims made are credible based upon the growing numbers of health disparities outside of the scope of economic differences, as well as the rise in attitudes towards cultural humility versus cultural competence training in academia. The challenges involved in increasing attitudes towards cultural humility lie within curriculum construction and evaluation. Those involved in academia regarded stereotypic

Haynes (2016) article, The Road to Cultural Competency Are We There yet? Stated that the key to decreasing health disparities in the workforce could be done by increasing diversity. Health disparities as indicated by Turk (2014), Issue: Nursing Workforce, can result in a more complicated societal problem. It was further stated, health disparities have received much attention and is currently identified as a priority issue in our nation. According to Haynes (2016), strategies which were recommended by the Sullivan Commission were done to increase the workforces of nursing should begin with education. Cultural competency as stated here should be a vital component of the nursing curriculum. Turk (2014) reported health disparities result in a more multifaceted societal burden. According to Turk (2014), decreasing health disparities has received significant attention. Individuals, including policymakers, academicians, and researchers are concerned about the diversification of the healthcare workforce of which strategies are being implemented by decreasing health disparities and increasing the availability of culturally competent among health care providers.

Cultural competency and understanding of health disparities is essential to all care providers. Continuing education programs for colleagues using Purnell’s 12 domains is a way ARPRNs can facilitate cultural competency. The

The first step to achieving complete cultural competency is valuing diversity. It is a process that requires cultural humility. Unlike competency, cultural humility goes beyond simply being knowledgeable of differences, but having a humble desire to ensure a lifelong commitment to intercultural exchange (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998). I have witnessed some Americans oppose the idea of immigration and strongly believe that American services should not cater to immigrants. They believe that all foreigners should learn English and the United States should not accommodate their linguistic needs. These same people are aware of the cultural differences that exist in America, but lack cultural humility and appreciation for diversity, making it difficult for them to attain complete cultural competency. A public health professional cannot go into a community, assuming that everyone thinks and behaves like them. They must be open-minded, flexible, empathetic, and aware of the differences and similarities that exist. Therefore, cultural humility is a prerequisite in achieving cultural competence.

Understanding where we come from is important to determine what cultural differences leads to our values, attitudes, practice, and principles. Cultural competence is necessary in our health care profession in order to provide an effective service to our diverse community. Cultural competence is one of many health care providers’ responsibilities. Self awareness and analysis of own culture help to sensitize our own feeling towards others cultural groups. Being born in Cuba, I thought that there was nothing else to learn about my own customs and culture.

Anderson, P. A., Gill, P. S., Greenfield, S. M., & Loudon, R. F. (1999). Educating medical students for work in culturally diverse societies. Journal of American Medical Association, 282. 875-880.

Shared decision making should involve both health professionals and patients in discussions about their care. “While health professionals hold the expert clinical and technical knowledge, patients are experts about their own lives and treatment objectives, and also what is important to them when making decisions. (Lally, Macphail, Palmer, Blair and Thomsom, 2011).

The United States ethnically diverse population continues to grow, and with it comes a strong need for health services. Based on evidence based research, the health care system is shifting to providing culture competence to their staff in order to provide the best services to their patients. Although hospital staff is being trained on becoming culturally sensitive, research continues to demonstrate health disparities and discrimination among minority populations. Furthermore, studies demonstrate that the more education someone has the better health outcome. Therefore, programs that empower minority populations to pursue health professional careers, can help develop a more diverse health care environment. Through providing services to underrepresented

The article was written in the form of study aimed to explore undergraduate health students’ perceptions of their cultural competence as a part of the cross-cultural experiential learning process. The problem of the study raised from the increasing tendencies of cultural diversification of the total population. This demographic shift required the development of culturally sensitive programs which would address cultural awareness. The study was essential for community health students who work with diverse groups in the U.S. - Mexico border area and other regions in the United States.