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Nowadays, it is necessary for any person working with other people to be culturally competent. In healthcare, awareness of differences between various cultures is particularly important because it helps improve the quality of the provided care. In other words, nurses and practitioners should tailor medical treatment depending on every patient’s cultural, religious, linguistic, and socioeconomic features. The present paper discusses the significance of cultural competency in the American health care system, describes the role of health care leaders in its implementation. The essay also analyses the author’s ability to understand and interact with the representatives of other cultures.
Self-Evaluation
The tests have shown that my skills of cultural competency are quite developed. More precisely, in the inclusion test, I gained 69 points out of 80. According to the explanation provided on the webpage of this test, I could be characterized as “a highly inclusive leader” (Inclusive Leaders Group.org, para. 5). On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate myself with 4 points. The results of the intercultural quiz are 14 points out of 20. Similarly to the preceding test, I would estimate myself with 4 points out of 5. The test on cultural competency in nursing homes also reveals that I can provide decent medical help to patients with diverse cultural backgrounds because I correctly answered 9 questions of 12. In this case, I would mark myself with 4 points on a 5-point scale. At the same time, these tests reveal that I am not familiar with the traditions and taboos of some countries, such as, for example, Brazil, and religions, such as Hinduism. To tackle this issue, I should spend more time reading about other cultures and communicating with people whose faith, race, and worldview differ from mine.
Importance of Cultural Competency in the US Health Care System
Cultural competency is essential for the American health care system because the population of the US is highly heterogeneous. What is more, according to the study conducted by Dreachslin, Gilbert, and Malone (2012) and McKesey et al. (2017), under-represented minorities in the US suffer from health disparities and low quality of the provided care. People who profess non-Christian religions or represent not widespread cultures might become victims of bias and prejudice. One of the most effective tools to eradicate this problem is to employ culturally competent treatment practices (McKesey et al., 2017). However, mere implementation of such policies without providing education on intercultural communication is inefficient. Weech-Maldonado et al. (2018) note that one way to raise the cultural competence of staff members is to establish an environment that motivates them to develop their knowledge of other cultures. It is interesting to notice that some hospitals even provide Spanish language courses for the medical personnel to immerse them in this culture and make them more tolerant (Jongen, McCalman, and Bainbridge, 2018). This way, improvements in the level of cultural competency of health care institutions require intensive and regular training and education of practitioners.
Role of Health Care Leaders in Implementing Cultural Competency
As it has already been noted in the preceding paragraph, the implementation of cultural competencies begins with the proper education and training of health staff. Therefore, administrative personnel of hospitals and clinics are responsible for the organization of courses and control over the performance of employees. Furthermore, Dauvrin and Lorant (2015) have discovered a correlation between the cultural competence of leaders and their subordinates. According to the authors, the empirical data proves the existence of a direct correlation between these two variables (Dauvrin and Lorant, 2015). From this, it could be inferred that prior to educating ordinary nurses and doctors, the managerial personnel of a hospital should eradicate personal cultural unawareness.
Leaders should be the drivers of the changes; they should use their own example to explain the significance of cultural competence to the staff members. In addition to that, the administrative personnel should be responsible for encouraging those nurses and doctors who completed the relevant courses and successfully employ this knowledge in practice and punish those who do not. One possible way to check whether a nurse is polite to a patient who represents minorities and tries to approach this person in a unique way considering his or her cultural background is to collect the patients’ reflections on a nurse’s performance.
Conclusion
The analysis conducted in the present paper reveals that it is necessary for me to make more of an effort to eradicate gaps in my cultural awareness because I am the prospective leader of a health care organization. To achieve this goal, I should read more literature on cultural peculiarities, watch related movies, and communicate with people of different backgrounds. It does not matter whether a patient receives inpatient, outpatient, or ancillary care because, in all of these cases, the treatment plan should not contradict his or her views. This could only be achieved through a dialogue with a culturally competent doctor who realizes how important it is to consider every patient’s cultural, religious, and socioeconomic background.
References
Dauvrin, M., & Lorant, V. (2015). Leadership and cultural competence of healthcare professionals: a social network analysis. Nursing research, 64(3), 200-210.
Dreachslin, J. L., Gilbert, M. J., & Malone, B. (2012). Chapter 4. Diversity and cultural competence in health care: A systems approach. In J. L. Dreachslin, M. J. Gilbert, and B. Malone (Eds). Foundations for Cultural Competence in Healthcare. Wiley.
Inclusive Leaders Group.org (n.d.). Inclusive Leadership – Self Assessment.
Jongen, C., McCalman, J., & Bainbridge, R. (2018). Health workforce cultural competency interventions: a systematic scoping review. BMC health services research, 18(1), 1-15.
McKesey, J., Berger, T. G., Lim, H. W., McMichael, A. J., Torres, A., & Pandya, A. G. (2017). Cultural competence for the 21st century dermatologist practicing in the United States.Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 77(6), 1159-1169.
Weech-Maldonado, R., Dreachslin, J. L., Epané, J. P., Gail, J., Gupta, S., & Wainio, J. A. (2018). Hospital cultural competency as a systematic organizational intervention: Key findings from the national center for healthcare leadership diversity demonstration project. Health care management review, 43(1), 30-41.
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