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Discuss the effect of culture on the healthcare delivery system
Discuss the effect of culture on the healthcare delivery system
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The health of an individual is affected by numerous factors that function on multiple heights and during the course of the life. Even though politicians and healthcare professionals have voiced their concern about the significance of access to and quality of healthcare services in the nation, we have to acknowledge that prevention is also crucial. The prevention of diseases and promotion of health require addressing a much comprehensive set of health policies that shape health-related behaviors (Why We Need Health-Informed Policies & Decision-Making, 2011). Health policies are indispensable vehicles in providing precision with matters and undertakings that are precarious to health and safety. According to the World Health Organization (2017), …show more content…
The diversity of impact that globalization is having on the healthcare sector is rapidly growing resulting in a variety of initiatives seeking more details understanding of these impact and designing effect policy responses to them (Lee, Buse & Fustukian, 2002). As a result of globalization, we now live in a very diverse society that entails patient population from different ethnic, race and religious groups. The healthcare system has been faced with challenges in providing quality health care to a diverse group of patients due to language barrier, cultural dissimilarities and gap in health literacy. However, in order to tailor a healthcare system that can deliver the cultural, social and linguistic needs of patients their needs to be cultural competency and that starts with health …show more content…
For a community to be in support, a health policy should provide vibrant information and guidance on issues concerning the health outcome of that community. In order to bring about changes in health conditions the critical factor is having the support of the community. The approval of a health policy by the community has a lot to do with the developments of that community. Having the support of the community is beyond the mere conclusion that the community understands the policy but rather when the community responses to the issue of the health
Cultural competency is a very significant necessity in health care today and the lack of it in leadership and in the health workforce, is quite pressing. The lack of cultural competency can bring about dire consequences such as racial and ethnic disparities in health care. It may not be the sole reason for these disparities, but it certainly places a significant role. A patient and health care provider relationship is very significant and can make or break the quality of care that is given. The lack of cultural competency leads to poor communication which then leads to those of diverse backgrounds to feel either unheard or just plain misunderstood. As an East African
According to Penner et al. (2013), there are various causes of healthcare disparities, such as socioeconomic status; this results to poor healthcare services for people with low socioeconomic status, as people with low pay find it difficult to leave their work to seek healthcare help, or to afford healthcare insurance (p.4). The second cause is language proficiency. The language barriers faced by the immigrant plays a role in the healthcare disparities among the racial or ethnic minority patients. Another cause is health literacy. The levels of the health literacy among the foreign born individuals can be influenced by their higher level of distrust of the healthcare providers and healthcare system than they have towards Caucasian people. This, in turn, leads them to seek healthcare information less often than their Caucasian counterparts, thus hindering the provision of quality services, as well as limiting the foreign patients’ ability to manage their health conditions effectively. The foreigners’ failure to easily accept the information provided to them by healthcare providers puts them at risk. Disentangling the role of health literacy in racial healthcare disparities from the effects of racial attitudes and beliefs is often hard (Penner et al,
As a nurse, I am obligated to care for all cultures, and try to understand their values, beliefs, spirituality, gender roles, and language. Cultures can range from different families, environments, disabilities, or even genders. It is a very broad topic, and I hope to recognize these cultures in my nursing career. Some barriers may exist that can make it challenging to work with people of a different culture, but it is possible to overcome these with the resources within the health care system. The Health Policy Institute identifies that “[t]he goal of culturally competent health care services is to provide the highest quality of care to every patient, regardless of race, ethnicity, cultural background, English proficiency or literacy” (“Cultural Competence”, 2004). Additionally, cultural competence is an ongoing process that involves both the client, and health care professional to work together that best suits the client’s
Going to a different country or area of the world can open up anybody’s eyes to see that culture makes a huge impact on the understanding and practices of healthcare that seem to be so common to other areas of the world. When a person lives in one country their whole life, that person may not realize how different the life they live is from someone in a foreign country. If a person is going to receive treatment from someone with a different cultural background, they should be expected to get treatment to respects their own culture. Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences having such a diverse variety of students has their own cultural competency definition that states “effectively and comfortably communicate across cultures with patients of differing backgrounds, taking into account aspects of trust in order to adopt mutually acceptable objectives and measures”. In the book Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa by Katherine Dettwyler, the issue of culture and healthcare are greatly prevalent. Katherine Dettwyler herself goes to West Africa as an anthropologist and her horizons are broadened when during her research she comes in contact with how much culture has an impact on healthcare and everyday life.
Multicultural health issues can present challenges to providing quality primary care and practitioners are in a strong position to improve the health of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Health care organizations have made intense progresses and revolutions during the last few decades, resulting in rapid growth of technology and theory. Some of the changes are introduction of new health based technology, meeting consumer demand for quality care, increased patient acuity and increases the burden of escalating healthcare expenditure. It focuses on primary health care which is the basic entry level of health care. The principle of primary health care is equity, acceptability, cultural competence, affordability, and
Cultural competence in health care provision refers to the capacity of health care systems to offer good care to patients and accommodate employees, who have diverse beliefs, behaviors, and values to meet their cultural, linguistic, and social needs. It comprises of policies, attitudes, and behaviors that integrate to form a system that can operate efficiently in cross cultural conditions. Healthcare organizations look at cultural competence from two major viewpoints. Firstly, it is a tool to enhance patient care from all backgrounds, social groups, languages, religions, and beliefs. Secondly, it is a tool that strategically attracts potential clients to their organizations and, hence, expands
As we are living in this culturally diverse society it is of extreme importance that healthcare providers deliver appropriate services that are fair, culturally sensitive and are respective of the individual’s culture. This can only truly occur when health care providers understand individual cultures and the needs, values and beliefs of the individuals within them.
Cultural competence can be defined as using the ability of one’s awareness, attitude, knowledge and skill to effectively interact with a patient’s many cultural differences. Madeline Leininger, a pioneer on transcultural nursing describes it this way; “a formal area of study and practice focused on comparative human-care differences and similarities of the beliefs, values and patterned lifeways of cultures to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people” (Barker, 2009, p. 498). The importance of cultural diversity in healthcare allows for the delivery of appropriate cultural autonomy. Showing respect for others will lead to trust between nurse and patient which in turn improves healing and health.
Because state and local public health programs are often funded at least in part with Federal dollars, accountability is often a key issue (“Ten Essential Public Health Services.” 2015). Public health programs therefore document progress towards positive change in health behavior or health status indicators (“Ten Essential Public Health Services.” 2015). Data such as these can be presented to policymakers to document the value or effectiveness of a program (“Ten Essential Public Health Services.” 2015). Those data can also be used for continued program planning and modification (“Ten Essential Public Health Services.” 2015). Policies have positive or negative influences on health. Examples of health policies include safety standards, which influence the incidence of injuries; tobacco regulations affect personal health; and safe city parks can affect the ability for people are active (California Department of Public Health “Strategic Plan”, 2013). It is a systematic process to utilize appropriate data, develop and track measurable health objectives, establish strategies and actions to guide the targeted improvements (California Department of Public Health “Strategic Plan”, 2013). The targeted strategies may be laws, codes, regulations and/or
Diversity in healthcare is a very upcoming and important aspect in modern day practice. When the diversity increases of a country, it brings upon new challenges and aspects to be looked into and health care providers and systems must find a way to be able to deliver culturally competent services and solutions. In healthcare cultural competence can be described as, “the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients” ("News Worldwide"). The diversity of an institution, can directly impact how well care is being received and delivered amongst their patients. When there is not cultural competence in a healthcare environment, research from the Institute of Medicine has proved that this can lead to poor patient satisfaction and increased health disparities, no matter what services are available. Not only this an aspect that relates to
The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the changing role of public health. Wanless (2004) defines public health as ‘prolonging life and promoting health through the organised efforts and informed choices of society, organisations, communities and individuals’. The focus of health promotion is to reduced health inequalities with the main concept being protecting the public from transmissible diseases, improving services and to help the health of the population. Scriven, A (2010) suggests that it is vital to measure health when promoting health to identify priorities, assist with planning, identify resources needed and to assist the development of the health professional.
However, cultural competency should always have its ground in health-care, as the world’s population is biting more into multiculturalism; taking for example, the United States as a multicult...
Hence, cultural competence describes the integration of cultural knowledge, respect, policies and practices in the healthcare setting (Kodjo, 2009). Cultural competence aims to minimize the effect of cross-cultural health disparities and bias, as well as increase patients’ overall satisfaction (Kodjo, 2009), treatment adherence and willingness to seek care (Beach et al., 2005; Brach & Fraserirector,
The world is becoming a global village and with this development, people of different cultures have interacted. Even in the healthcare sector, caregivers are finding themselves in an environment with cultural diversity. This has necessitated the need to embrace multicultural competence, which has been suggested to improve the quality of care offered. This work focusses on multicultural competence and transcultural medical practices, with an emphasis on the Chinese culture and how it would be a factor if such a population seeks medical services in US health facilities.
Nancy Milio proposed that an individual’s health and lifestyle choices are influenced by resources, availability, cost and convenience more than knowledge obtained from education. This thought provides the framework for influencing community habits by developing policies that protect and promote health (Nies & McEwan, 2015-a). In this paper, I will identify and analyze a community health problem using Milio’s framework for prevention, use Healthy People 2020 to find national goals that relate to my diagnosis and develop one long-term goal, three short-term goals, and accompanying interventions.