Contextualizing Patient-Centered Care

Question: Discuss about the Report for Contextualizing Patient-Centered Care. Answer: Introduction Cultural safety in health care is very critical in enhancing safe care health care environment and providing delivery of accurate health service according to the preference of the consumers. It involves respecting cultural identities and meeting patients expectation in health services. This report summarizes four current media article on current cultural safety issue in health care and links those issues with readings in the units. It describes how issues presented in the media article is relevant to the current debate on the culturally safety in health care. The report also provides other perspectives and personal position and views on the issue. Article 1: In the given article by Taylor, Nicolle Maguire (2013), the authors have investigated the perceptions of the healthcare professionals in caring the people of the United Kingdom, belonging from ethnic minorities. According to Misra-Hebert Isaacson (2012), due to the migration the ethnic background of the community of UK has diversified to a great extent. People from China and other African countries like Somalia, Zimbabwe and Republic of Congo. There are also people from the Asian sub-continents, who have settled in UK and thus, form a major part of the minority community. The language is a major barrier for the minority people in order to seek healthcare service. The result of the research that is conducted by the authors of the given article has raised the difficulties in the healthcare that have risen due to lack of cultural awareness and understanding among the people of UK. The issues that is mentioned in the journal article has strong link with the matter of effective communication. Effective communication is one of the prime requirements for providing treatment to the minority section of the people of UK. In the research article the authors have mentioned that the effective communication can be achieved with the help by increasing the range of cultural awareness. The linguistic difference of the Asian and African minority people, who resides in the UK region, pose the biggest challenge for achieving effective communication. Hence, the health service providers need to have sufficient linguistic knowledge that will help them communicate with the minorities. The findings of the research article have discovered that the language is one of the major difficulties that have prevented to get quality health service for the minority people. The low level of literacy and lack of awareness among the people is also another major barrier. The discrimination of the healthcare workers towards the minority people does not allow the people to increase their faith towards the healthcare service. The researchers have suggested that it is essential to improve the communication skills among the healthcare workers. Hence, this will help them to get a better understanding of the language of the minority people. It is also essential to increase the awareness level of the minority people by providing them with the latest updated information (Cavanaugh Konrad 2012). The healthcare stuff also needs to have sufficient access to the information regarding the patients that will help them to provide an efficient solution. My personal opinion is that the duty of the healthcare workers to provide quality healthcare service with the help of cultural awareness and communication. The government of UK needs to promote the cultural awareness in the healthcare department of the country. Hence, this will ensure that the minority people in the UK community do not face discrimination in the healthcare department. Moreover, the promotion of the English language is also an essential part as it will help to remove the language barriers among the patients. As the population of the minority section has reached to new levels, it is crucial for the healthcare workers to get proper training and awareness session. This will help them to improve the cultural awareness and also overcome all the barriers that are linked with the health care service. Article 2: In the given article by Griswold et al., (2007), the importance of cultural awareness among the medical students, in order to provide medical service to the refugee patient is mentioned. The authors of the article have done qualitative analysis on the above mentioned topic. The cultural training and awareness sessions are an important part of the teaching area in the medical colleges of United States. It is also important for the medical students to understand the importance of cultural values of the patient while providing medical service. In the year 1995, the University of Michigan had introduced an informal curriculum that aimed to increase the cultural awareness among the medical students. The medical colleges in the United States have formed a partnership with the community cares. This will help the medical institutes to provide health service to the refugee people. The issues that are mentioned in the article focus on the importance of correct form of communication. There is a high chance of medical error without proper communication. Moreover, if there is misdiagnosis, a patient may also receive wrong treatment, which can lead to higher level of complication to a patient. The medical institutes need to employ sufficient staffs, who will help in the matter of effective healthcare communication. The staffs will also help to overcome the barriers that exist in the process of communication (Meuter et al., 2015). The researchers in the article have provided the terms of communication language among the medical students. There is a huge difference between the communication between telephonic and person to person communication. Moreover, the interpretation of the message made by the patients depends on the commutation skills of the healthcare workers. It is also important for the medical students to respect the religious belief of the people along with their ethnomedical culture. The refugee patients must not be treated with any form of discrimination. The authors have mentioned that the medical students have paid attention to the health conditions of the refugee. They also have been able to learn the cultural value of the refugee people, while providing treatment to them. The medical students have also understood the importance of earning the trust among the patients and respecting the personal needs of every patient. Treating every patient with the correct amount of emotional and empathy is a lso important, and this is mainly important for providing treatment to the refugees (Visser Erby, 2014). The personal perspective is that the interpretation of the communication is important for the medical students to provide correct form of treatment to the refuge patients. As those patients have different form language, it is curial for the medical workers to understand the issues they are facing. With interacting patients from diverse culture, will help the medical students to improve upon their knowledge of culture and thus promote the importance of cultural awareness among the health sector of United States (Bylund, Peterson Cameron 2012). Article 3 The media material by Patel, (2015) discusses about the proceedings of a workshop that used an online self-assessment tool to evaluate the cultural responsiveness and communication skills of participants. The online tool focuses on demographic details, type of population the participant is serving and detail on any previous training on cultural competency. Other factors covered in the assessment tool were personal values and responsibility, strategies to achieve cultural competency and the ability to understand the dynamics between different cultures. The results of each participant were collated and a plan was developed according to the weakness of skills identified in each patients. Another session with Aboriginal community explained the impact of adhering to medications. Overall the workshop was effective in getting new insights in health literacy and cultural awareness skills. The approach to this issue mentioned in media articles have many similarity as well as differences with those discussed in HEA230 unit. For example the media article by Patel, (2015) gave detail on the features in online-self assessment tool that help in evaluating health literacy skills and improving health literacy, however the reading discussed in the unit gave detail on the factors that can detract effective communication. Firstly the readings illustrated that it occurs due to linguistic difference between health care staff and patients (Grant Luxford,2011). Ineffective communication due to these differences is the reason for medication errors, misdiagnosis and giving medical treatment without informed consent. The readings also highlighted the serious consequences of ineffective communication for indigenous people (Lowell et al., 2012). The media article contributes to the current views on health care safety issues and ways to deliver culturally appropriate care. In the current situation of dealing with diverse group of patients, all current research articles also proves that session on cultural competence training is effective in improving performance of health care staff. For instance, a pilot project stressed the need for continuously developing competence in nurses to provide care to culturally diverse patients. The study compared the cultural competence score of nurse before and after one hour teaching on cultural competence. The skills of staff were assessed before the class and in period of 3 months and 6 months. In this case, also a statistically significant increase in cultural awareness was found in participants after the class on educational education (Delgado et al., 2013). Hence, current practice is relevant to those mentioned in media articles. An overview of teaching strategies for cultural competence also relates to the media articles as it states that reflection on clinical experience and targeting patients according to their cultural preference helps nurses to confidently work with ethnically diverse patients (Long, 2012). My personal view regarding the topic is that it is extremely essential that health care authority and health organization intervene to provide culturally safe care and remove issues of inaccessibility of care for culturally diverse groups. A modification in nursing curriculum is also essential as nursing curricula has very few classes of cultural competence skills. Introduction of patient simulation in nursing curriculum can also be effective in training nurse on cultural competence skills (Roberts et al., 2014). This will enable nurse to confidently deal with patients from the beginning. Article 4 The article by Rowe Paterson, (2010) gives insight into barriers faced in providing health care services to refugees and explains how cultural competency helps health care providers to understand the individual needs and cultural preference of a refugee. Refugees also face challenge in assessing care due to lack of knowledge with modern health care practices. The article gives an idea about cultural competency and recommends ways to improve cultural communication by understanding the difference in culture and putting efforts to understand the cultural background of refugee patients. The author stressed that health care staffs can be successful in this approach if they take genuine interest in building trust with refugees by understanding their personal circumstances. It also focused on removing language barrier in treating refugees by working with interpreter and being aware of body language. The approach to addressing cultural safety issues in health care is relevant to those mentioned in unit discussion. The unit discussion compared literature to find the factors for effective communication and it was related to mostly relate to lack of cultural awareness and fragmented and deficient health communication system. It highlighted that power relations and location of control is critical to effective communication and removing barrier in access to care (Austin Pinkleton, 2015).The approach to enhancing cultural communication included recognizing the current cultural understanding and need of health consumers, ensuring access to services and introducing resources that effectively disseminate health related information. It also proposed that critical reflection can be effective in improving health care practice (Booth Nelson, 2013). The current view on improving health care service for refugees is to first understand the health related experience and level of access to care among refugees. The language of the refugees was regarded as the most commonly identified barrier in the media article, however it is also important that other context be reviewed such as marginalization in society due to social position. The study investigating health care issues in asylum seekers and refugees showed that there are multiple layers of oppression such as minoritization that leads to health inequities in such person. The challenges in care were also due to social and cognitive gap among this group (Fang et al., 2015). Hence, it is essential changes in health care should also incorporate understanding of marginalization to address the issue. Another approach to enhancing cultural sensitivity in health care staff to deal with refugees is to understand the cultural context and traumas faced by this group (Ellis et al, 2014). These health disparities can be reduced by cultural awareness program that is group specific and applies a universal model to give training on cultural communication skill. This universal model is useful in giving knowledge on active listening technique and enhancing reflective awareness in health care staff (Douglas et al., 2014). I have a different perspective to address cultural safety issues in health care system. The set of recommendation for improving safe delivery of care includes adapting to diversity to integrate them into health sectors, developing cross-cultural assessment tools to monitor progress in cultural skills among staffs and taking patient centeredness approach to improve the quality of health care delivery. Hence a value of patient centeredness is also effective in building therapeutic relationship with culturally diverse groups (Aboumatar Cooper, 2013). Conclusion The authors of all the above mentioned articles have discussed the importance of communication and cultural value in the area of health. The minorities form a major part of the population of all the major nations of the world. It is important for the health workers to understand the cultural and ethical values of every individual patient and ensure that there is no discrimination. Enhancing the cultural awareness and communication skills among the medical and healthcare workers is one the prime requirements of providing quality healthcare service. Reference Aboumatar, H. J., Cooper, L. A. (2013). Contextualizing patient-centered care to fulfill its promise of better health outcomes: beyond who, what, and why.Annals of internal medicine,158(8), 628-629. Austin, E. W., Pinkleton, B. E. (2015).Strategic Public Relations Management: Planning and Managing Effective Communication Campaigns(Vol. 10). Routledge. Booth, J. Nelson, A. (2013). 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