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Cultural Competence
What is Cultural Competence in Healthcare?
The 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. Some common strategies for improving the patient-provider interaction and institutionalizing changes in the health care system include:
- Provide interpreter services
- Recruit and retain minority staff
- Provide training to increase cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills
- Coordinate with traditional healers
- Use community health workers
- Incorporate culture-specific attitudes and values into health promotion tools
- Include family and community members in health care decision making
- Locate clinics in geographic areas that are easily accessible for certain populations
- Expand hours of operation
- Provide linguistic competency that extends beyond the clinical encounter to the appointment desk, advice lines, medical billing, and other written materials
Georgetown Health Policy Institute. (2004 February) What is Cultural Competence in Healthcare? (Issue Brief Number 5) Retrieved from:
Health Information on the Web: Cultural Competence
- CDC - Office of Minority Health and Health EquityThe Office of Minority Health and Health Equity aims to accelerate CDC’s health impact in the U.S population and to eliminate health disparities for vulnerable populations as defined by race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, geography, gender, age, disability status, risk status related to sex and gender, and among other populations identified as at-risk for health disparities.
- Ethnomed: Clinical TopicsThe objective of the website is to make information about culture, language, health, illness and community resources directly accessible to health care providers who see patients from different ethnic groups.
- Minority Women's Health IssuesThe site takes a closer look at some of the main health problems facing specific minority groups, and provides links to more in-depth information.
- Office of Minority Health - HHS DepartmentThe Office of Minority Health announces the release of the Cultural Competency Program for Oral Health Professionals (CCPOHP) , an e-learning program designed to better equip oral health professionals with the knowledge and skills to better serve diverse patient populations.
- Transcultural Nursing SocietyThe TCNS seeks to provide nurses and other health care professionals with the knowledge
base necessary to ensure cultural competence in practice, education, research, and administration.