Cultural Training of the Staff to Improve Health Quality in the Community

Executive Summary

This report is conducted to address the issues related to the recently identified decline in the performance of a new health care facility opened in a culturally diverse neighborhood. The content of the document presents the learned causes and outcomes of the problem, as well as outlines the solution plan. The measures introduced within the plan are based on the current academic research in the field and addresses the issues of hiring and training staff members in accordance with the cultural competence requirements.

It has been found that the residents of the community are not willing to attend the outreach health care center due to the failure of the staff to represent the demographics of the neighborhood. The fact that this issue obstructed patient attendance implies the significance of cultural competence in the health care context. The growing diversity of the population in the USA requires medical institutions to learn and apply the techniques of communication with national minorities at a professional level. Cultural training of the staff at the examined facility will allow for developing their cultural awareness, sensitivity, and skills, which they will use in their daily performance. The knowledge and their practical implementation will increase the level of patients’ trust and improve the situation related to health quality in the community.

Introduction

The US population embraces people not only different in age or gender but also ethnicity, cultural background, and nationality. The priority of the health care system is to meet the health needs of all patients regardless of their belonging to a particular population group. Recently, diversity has become one of the leading issues in the medical sphere due to the growing number of culturally varied communities. This increase is predetermined by migration, demographic shifts, and globalization trends, which all contribute to the creation of a multinational society (Lin, Lee, & Huang, 2016).

• Many health care organizations fail to adjust their practices to the requirements of minority groups. The factors contributing to this problem include:

  • Staff lacks information about the population they serve.
  • The development of specific services aimed at a particular population is challenging due to the growing diversity (Hart & Mareno, 2016).
  • On-going cultural competence training and education are insufficient (Young & Guo, 2016).
• The problem might adversely affect both the organization and the patients it serves. The outcomes include but are not limited to:

  • A scarce customer base that undermines the organization’s efficiency;
  • Low level of health care service delivery to underserved minority populations;
  • Increased level of comorbidities and mortality rates due to the lack of professional care and treatment of chronic illnesses;
  • Disruption of the work of the health care system which might lead to epidemics.
• It is vital to find proper solutions to the problem of insufficient cultural competence. Health care providers need to incorporate current academic research and evidence-based data to ensure qualitative service for their particular population. It is possible to accomplish this task by developing a plan of action that addresses all significant areas of change implementation.

Proposed Solution Plan

1. In order to meet the needs of a culturally diverse population, the leaders of the organization have to hire staff that resembles the demographic characteristics of the neighborhood (Guillaume, Dawson, Otaye-Ebede, Woods, & West, 2017). Therefore, the first step in the problem-solving should be the application of a tool of the demographic analysis of the community population with an emphasis put on cultural disparities.
2. The second step is the analysis of the current staff as per their relevance to the demographic scale identified in the first step and the following evaluation of their cultural competence skills and knowledge. One of the tools possible to be used in the measurement procedure is Cultural Awareness Scale (Lin et al., 2016).
3. To hire a culturally diverse staff, human resource managers should conduct interviews developed on the basis of the information about the needs of the community under service. It is important to attract professionals who are the residents of the community to enhance the communicational improvement between nurses and patients.
4. The staff then needs to undergo a series of training sessions that have to concentrate on the following issues:

   1. Learning the basics of cultural competence that includes “cultural awareness and sensitivity, cultural knowledge, and cultural skill” (Lin, Lee, & Huang, 2016, p. 176).
   2. Exploring and teaching the particular minorities that the community inhabitants represent. The workforce should be educated the basics of the language, preferences, religious ideas, and cultural beliefs of the potential patients to be ready to serve them according to the framework of their worldview (Young & Guo, 2016). Many evidence-based studies show that patients are more likely to trust and consult the health care facilities where the staff is aware of their cultural belonging (Hart & Mareno, 2016; Lin et al., 2016).
   3. Developing and implementation of a program incorporating on-going in-service training and assessment tools to ensure staff’s professional development and their culturally sensitive service’s effectiveness (Lin et al., 2016).

Supporting Evidence for the Solution

The suggested solution plan is based on the current academic research and aims at the elimination of the causes of the problem and identification of the primary goals and population’s needs by evidence-based means. The development of the outlined interventions will provide the following benefits for both the organization and the community:

1. The flow of patients will be sufficient, and the organization will operate properly, providing adequate care for all the categories of the population.
2. The discrimination will be eliminated, and the diversity will be erespected on the organizational level.
3. The patients from minority groups will be more comfortable to visit the facility and consult the specialists, thus ensuring better patient coverage.
4. The health information promotion conducted by culturally competent professionals will be accepted better, which will ultimately contribute to the improvement of quality of life in the community.

Conclusion

In summary, the problem identified within the health care facility for the underserviced diverse community is caused by the staff’s lack of cultural competence. To solve this problem, the leaders of the organization have to analyze the demographic characteristics of the population under service to prioritize the cultural minorities and their specific needs. Hiring and retaining the staff members who are either the representatives of the local population groups or demonstrate a high level of cultural competence.

Further training program and on-going assessment should be implemented to foster staff’s theoretical and practical knowledge about the beliefs, preferences, language, and relationships building characteristic of a particular minority group. Such a strategy will allow for maintaining a high level of service quality that will attract patients in need and improve the overall quality of life in the community.

References

Guillaume, Y., Dawson, J. F., Otaye-Ebede, L., Woods, S. A., & West, M. A. (2017). Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38, 276-303.

Hart, P. L., & Mareno, N. (2016). Nurses’ perceptions of their cultural competence in caring for diverse patient populations. Online Journal of Cultural Competence in Nursing and Healthcare, 6(1), 121-137.

Lin, C. J., Lee, C. K., & Huang, M. C. (2016). Cultural competence of healthcare providers: A systematic review of assessment instruments. The Journal of Nursing Research, 25(3), 174-186.

Young, S., & Guo, K. L. (2016). Cultural diversity training: The necessity of cultural competence for health care providers and in nursing practice. Health Care Management, 35(2), 94-102.