The delivery of culturally competent healthcare is expected of all healthcare practitioners in an orderly functioning pluralistic society. The Healthcare Cultural Competency Council (HC3) ensures the delivery of safe and quality care across multiple cultural groups' beliefs regarding health and wellness.
2. Introduction
The healthcare sector characteristics in the United States:
● Serves a very culturally diverse population.
● Composed of many racial and ethnic groups
within our population
● Reflected in other groups with which patients
may identify inclusive of:
● Individuals with disabilities
● Groups that have certain beliefs that shape
their understanding of illness
● Individuals who practice an alternative lifestyle.
Clinicians display similar characteristics
It is estimated that 24 percent of all physicians in the US were born outside the US and
36+ million of us were also born outside the US. It is inescapable that cross cultural
doctor-patient interactions are expected, and medical practitioners need to be competent
if not proficient in dealing with patients whose cultures differ from their own and whose
notions of wellness may also differ.
3. Healthcare Cultural Competence Council
Its Necessity: It is inescapable that cross cultural clinician-
patient interactions are expected, and medical practitioners
need to be competent if not proficient in dealing with
patients whose cultures differ from their own and whose
notions of wellness and health may also differ.
4. Patients’ cultures impact:
Their understanding of health, illness
and disease etiology – their explanatory
model
How they access health care
services – disparity
How they respond to health care interventions – safety
and security
How trust is extended – competency and sensitivity
5. Patients who perceived
their visit as having been patient-centered
received fewer diagnostic tests and referrals.
(J Fam Pract 2000;49:796–804)
Others have reported that physicians who have visits
characterized by the greatest amount of patient-centered
communication also have the lowest expenses for
diagnostic
testing. (Ann Fam Med 2005;3:415–21)
7. The Council emphasizes:
● Clinicians should be able to recognize and respect the differing
cultural perspectives of patients.
● That this is important for the purpose of
effective clinical functioning in order to achieve
compliance and appropriate healthcare outcomes
for patients.
● Working successfully with patients of different
cultural backgrounds, practitioners need to demon-
strate the appropriate attitudes, awareness,
knowledge and skills.
The council has a role to play in advancing the commitment the care provider has made
to deliver high quality and appropriate services regardless of the race, ethnicity, disability,
life style choices, gender or any other human facet a care receiver brings in the process
of receiving services.
8. Enhance access to the best healthcare provider resources
Recommend and see to the implementation of changes to ensure culturally
competent care to a diverse patient population
Tracking, recruiting and retention of a diverse workforce
Critically observe employee cultural competency training and its evidentiary
impact on best practices
Develop new community initiatives to recruit qualified employees
Ensure the selection of outstanding, diverse employees to participate in
professional development programs.
Advance the community outreach agenda
9. Council Mandate
►Examine the dynamics between
clinicians, staff, subscribers, and
family particularly the nature of
the interaction, examples, metrics,
solutions and recommendations
for the purpose of supporting or
advocating changes to
service delivery to achieve cultural
proficiency and full integration of
these practices across the enterprise
10. Advocate for Cultural Safety within the enterprise
Cultural Safety is ensuring that all clinicians understand
and respect the different cultural underpinnings of the
patients they serve and are working with and ensure that
there is no confrontation, challenge or denial of cultural
identity in the process of delivering care.
Cultural Safety is an embedded practice
that recognizes the need to overcome
cultural biases in care services and
institutions in order to ensure that all
individuals and communities have equal
rights and equitable access to processes
and services which are relevant to them.
Safety you are accustomed to
11. The Seven Dimensions of Healthcare Quality
Characteristic Definition
Efficacy Is the care or procedure useful
Appropriateness Is it right for this patient?
Accessibility Can the patient get it?
Acceptability Does the patient want it?
Effectiveness Is it carried out well?
Efficiency Is it carried out in a cost- effective way?
Continuity Did it progress without interruption, with
appropriate follow-up, exchange of
information and referral
12. Collaborate in developing and implementing
a menu of cultural competency training
curricula for all clinical and non-clinical staff,
reflecting a long term, sustained strategy for
cultural competence and exceptional care
and service
13. Promote research in health care disparities.
Deploy improved measurement tools
in addition to the Picker Inpatient Survey
(a questionnaire designed to focus on
specific dimensions of patients'
experiences)
Assess inpatient satisfaction as it relates
to issues important to diverse cultural
populations and consistent with the
organization’s mission
14. Tracking Metrics
Review comprehensive quality reports and surveys to
ensure there are no significant differences based on
race/ethnicity or insurance in terms of nursing core
metrics (the Picker Survey, the PPSQ-Program for
Patient Safety and Quality Ambulatory Satisfaction
Survey, and the SERS-Safety Event Report System)
Collect language data in ambulatory
surveys in large enough samples to
provide broad-scope information on
culturally diverse populations
15. Importance of this Competency
Interpersonal Effectiveness:
Is a fundamental attribute in achieving appropriate
healthcare outcomes. It is demonstrated when there is
awareness of people’s feelings and is particularly critical
during the patient-provider interaction when the patient is
not precisely verbalizing their feelings and the provider is
not indicating by their reaction that they care about the
patient’s concerns and issues.
To achieve the support and compliance of a care receiver
interpersonal effectiveness is a fundamental attribute.
16. One of the signals that may be overlooked is the aspect of
patient literacy…………
and its related partner – Shared Decision Making (SDM)
17. What is literacy?*
It is the degree to which an individual can obtain, process,
and understand information to communicate with others or
make basic decisions
Health literacy is the defined as being
able to process and understand information
about health and medical treatments to
make basic decisions.
*Department of Health and Human Services, health.gov
