How can leaders and healthcare organizations help with ensuring culturally competent care?
To ensure culturally competent care, healthcare services must be accessible to patients so that language and cultural barriers do not become blockades to accessing care.
First, healthcare organizations must learn about the local community that they serve so they can ensure they have appropriate resources/services available and can respond to changing demographics (Cerveny et al., 2022). Collecting and analyzing demographic data, allows organizations to determine whether or not they need interpreter services within the hospital to assist with translation. Further, hospitals can develop translated material that caters to different cultures and language dialect patient populations (Harrison et al., 2019).
Second, healthcare organizations must make an effort to recruit culturally diverse staff (health professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds) for the benefit of patients encountering team members who speak their language and understand their cultural background (Harrison et al., 2019).
Third, healthcare organizations must form relationships/partnerships with community multicultural services, such as migrant resource organizations, to reach ethnic minority groups (Harrison et al., 2019).
Lastly, healthcare organizations must invest in cultural competency training courses for staff to promote a better understanding of specific cultures, especially ones that are commonly encountered at a given workplace (Kaihlanen et al., 2019).
Healthcare organizations can ask specific questions about how well their institution demonstrates cultural competency.
Are we drawing too much attention to the differences between minorities and the majority population in our training courses? For instance, there is the possibility of stereotyping with cultural competency training as the material often draws attention to the differences among minority groups (Cerveny et al., 2022). Further, discourses of cultural competence can continue to perpetuate negative outcomes for populations such as indigenous peoples and we accept this as being “normal” instead of considering the repercussions of “othering” patients when promoting culturally safe care.
Are we developing training courses only from a liberal/conservative, white multicultural perspective? Michael et al. (2021) highlights the potential of resistance to cultural competency training as the material may actually feel like privileged, predominant cultures are “attacked”. However, we also have to consider the perspectives of the dominant culture.
Do we have any language accessibility issues within the organization? It will be important to note if there have been any changes in cultural demographics or a recent influx of a specific cultural group where English is not the native language.
Where does inequality exist within the healthcare system? For instance, are we having a difficult time reaching patients in rural areas or at a greater geographic distance to local hospitals?
By asking these questions, leadership determines where disparities exist, and from there, they can allot funding and resources into making changes and investing in specific services (Cerveny et al., 2022; Michael et al., 2021).
Services in our local communities/workplaces:
Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia has “Diversity Services” that offers handbooks for healthcare providers, that share limited information on different cultures such as Islam or Sikh, and the values and beliefs they have that we need to consider when caring for them.
Fraser Health Authority also has an “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan” that is set for the years of 2023-2028 that aims to ensure the provision of equitable and safe care in their health services.
Provincial Health Services Authority in British Columbia offers an Indigenous Care Navigator to all cancer patients who identify as Indigenous. They also offer Indigenous cultural competence training for all healthcare staff free of cost.
HCA Healthcare ( St. Mark’s Hospital, Salt Lake City)
A large hospital organization all over the US (HCA)
Cultural competency training consists of mandatory annual online modules
All staff carry hospital iPhones which have a language service-, which allows for staff to have an interpreter for most languages within minutes
The electronic medical record allows us to print discharge instructions in most and multiple languages at once.
Here is the page on their website advertising how they deliver culturally competent care:
https://hcahealthcare.com/about/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/patients.dot
Hughes et al., 2020 recommended 4 Steps to engage and promote cultural humility within organizations:
1) Critically assess the institutions practice and culture
2) Develop cultural humility principles into the mission and vision statements of the organizations
3) Provide training and resources for staff and employees
4) Participate in periodic evaluation of efforts and progress of the implementation of cultural humility
Learning activity 3: Share ways your hospital or healthcare organization includes cultural competence in ongoing education or training for staff. Based on your experiences or observations do you feel it is effective?