As a member of the health workforce, I have noticed that I serve patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. I have also observed that the patients respond well to my services if they feel I acknowledge their cultural beliefs and practices. Thus, I have come to appreciate the importance of culturally sensitive care. In their 2011 article, Tucker and his colleagues define this concept as the ability to provide healthcare services to patients with diverse values. This concept aims to ensure that healthcare providers acknowledge the importance of cross-cultural communication to avoid culturally-based conflicts between patients and healthcare workers. It is worth noting that culture entails values relating to ethnicities, religions, and races.
Culturally sensitive care facilitates the achievement of patient satisfaction and positive health outcomes. It enables healthcare workers to abide by the ethical values of dignity, compassion, and respect without caring about the patients’ backgrounds (Dell’Osso, 2017). In this case, the healthcare providers tailor their services to fit the patients’ cultural-based expectations. The patients reciprocate the respectful gesture by cooperating with the procedures of making them better.
While culturally sensitive care is critical in healthcare delivery, I understand that it can be difficult for healthcare workers. Dell’ Osso (2017) emphasized that healthcare practitioners have their own cultures; therefore, it can be challenging to accommodate other people’s cultures. The most effective method to support culturally sensitive care is conducting culture training programs to teach the providers cross-cultural communication practices. Moreover, a healthcare institution should have a diverse workforce from both minority and majority cultural groups. This approach makes it easier for the workers to learn about other cultures, making them competent to deliver culturally sensitive care.
References
Dell’Osso, L. D. (2017). Culturally Sensitivity in Healthcare: The New Modern-Day Medicine. The Dominican University of California. https://scholar.dominican.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=senior-theses
Tucker, M. C. et al. (2011). Patient-Centered Culturally Sensitive Health Care: Model Testing and Refinem nt. Health Psychology, 30(3), 342-350. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092156/
