Cultural competence in healthcare

Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability for healthcare professionals to demonstrate cultural competence toward patients with diverse values, beliefs, and feelings. This process includes consideration of the individual social, cultural, and feelings needs of patients for effective cross-cultural communication with their health care providers. The goal of cultural competence in health care is to reduce health disparities and to provide optimal care to patients regardless of their race, gender, ethnic background, native languages spoken, and religious or cultural beliefs. Cultural competency training is important in health care fields where human interaction is common, including medicine, nursing, allied health, mental health, social work, pharmacy, oral health, and public health fields. Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability for healthcare professionals to demonstrate cultural competence toward patients with diverse values, beliefs, and feelings. This process includes consideration of the individual social, cultural, and feelings needs of patients for effective cross-cultural communication with their health care providers. The goal of cultural competence in health care is to reduce health disparities and to provide optimal care to patients regardless of their race, gender, ethnic background, native languages spoken, and religious or cultural beliefs. Cultural competency training is important in health care fields where human interaction is common, including medicine, nursing, allied health, mental health, social work, pharmacy, oral health, and public health fields. The term cultural competence was first used by Terry L. Cross and colleagues in 1989, but it was not until almost a decade later that health care professionals began to be formally educated and trained in cultural competence. In 2002, cultural competence in health care emerged as a field and has been increasingly embedded into medical education curriculum since then. Although cultural competence in healthcare is a global concept, it is primarily practiced in the United States. Cultural competence is defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and that enables them to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. Essential elements that enable organizations to become culturally competent include valuing diversity, having the capacity for cultural self-assessment, being conscious of the dynamics inherent when cultures interact, having institutionalized cultural knowledge, and having developed adaptations to service delivery reflecting an understanding of cultural diversity. By definition, diversity includes differences in race, ethnicity, age, gender, size, religion, sexual orientation, and physical and mental ability. Accordingly, organizations should include these considerations in all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, and service delivery. Cultural competence involves more than having sensitivity or awareness of cultures. It necessitates an active process of learning and developing skills to engage effectively in cross-cultural situations and re-evaluating these skills over time. Cultural competence is often used interchangeably with the term cultural competency. A healthcare system, sometimes referred to as health system, is the organization of people, institutions, and resources that deliver healthcare services to meet the health needs of target populations. A culturally competent health system not only recognizes and accepts the importance of cultural diversity at every level but also assesses the cross-cultural relations, stays vigilant towards any changes and developments resulting from cultural diversity, broadens cultural knowledge, and adapts services to meet the needs that are culturally-unique. As more and more immigrants are coming to America, healthcare professionals with good cultural competence can use the knowledge and sensitivity that they obtain in order to provide holistic care for clients from other countries, who speak foreign languages. The challenges for American healthcare systems to meet the health needs of the increasing number of diverse patients are becoming very obvious. The challenges include but are not limited to the following: In response to a rapid growth of minorities population in the United States, healthcare organizations have responded by providing new services and undergoing health reforms in terms of diversity in leadership and workforce. Despite improvements and progress seen in some areas, minorities are still underrepresented within both healthcare leadership and workforce. To improve the weak minorities representation in leadership and workforce, an organization must acknowledge the importance of cultures, be sensitive to cultural differences, and establish strategic plans to incorporate cultural diversity. According to the national survey of the U.S. healthcare leaders conducted by the search firm Witt/Kieffer, respondents viewed diverse leadership as a valuable business builder. They associated it with improved patient satisfaction, successful decision-making, improved clinical outcomes, and stronger bottom line.