Improving Cultural Competence in Healthcare

Healthcare is a deeply personal and unique experience for every individual. There are many factors that impact the way a given individual or group of people approach healthcare, and these factors can vary across generations, cultures, and life experiences. 

This blog will explore the importance of developing cultural competence in healthcare for the future health of various populations throughout the US. 

Furthermore, we’ll discuss what those in the healthcare field can do to create more cultural awareness in their own practices. 

What is Cultural Competence?

According to the CDC, cultural competence is:

“The integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the quality of services; thereby producing better outcomes.”

In other words, cultural competence in healthcare is when providers understand the cultural background of their patients and use that knowledge to inform their care. 

Employing this knowledge and perspective creates a system that is more equitable for the broader community and enables them to make choices that lead to healthy lifestyles and habits. 

Care Gaps and Cultural Competence in Healthcare

Care gaps are heavily related to cultural discrepancies between providers and certain patient populations around the US. A few examples illustrate this point: 

• Food insecurity affects 1 in 4 Native Americans. 
• Native American populations are twice as likely to get diabetes than caucasian populations. 
• Individuals with cognitive limitations are five times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. 
• African American veterans experience a lower quality of diabetes care relative to white veterans. 

These discrepancies are widespread, nuanced, and complicated to find solutions for. Regardless of the challenges that cultural differences bring, it is crucial to improve cultural competence in healthcare and to close these gaps.

The Importance of Cultural Competence in Healthcare 

When healthcare providers grow in cultural competency, they will better communicate with their patients, meet them where they’re at, and grow in understanding the environments and circumstances that may have led a patient to their current situation.

Imagine a scenario where a Hispanic patient with diabetes goes to the doctor for a checkup. The patient wasn’t able to bring a translator that day, so communication throughout the visit was a bit choppy and confusing. At the end of the appointment, the doctor recommends a diabetic retinopathy screening for the patient as a preventative measure. The patient smiles and nods, and then leaves the appointment and never initiates a preventative diabetic retinopathy screening. When the doctor later finds out that the patient is suffering from this preventable eye disease, the doctor is frustrated with the patient for lack of initiative. 

But if the doctor had been equipped with cultural understanding in that scenario, they would have: 

• More easily recognized that the patient didn’t understand their recommendations
•  Would have been able to see that the patients’ perceived understanding of medical recommendations was an attempt to show respect for the doctor by not asking too many clarifying questions and saving face in the midst of a personal conversation. 

The end result of this alternate scenario would have been additional advocacy on behalf of the patient, leading to proper preventative measures and a better health outcome in the long run. 

The importance of preventative measures is just one cultural competence in healthcare example. Having cultural competency to explain and implement these preventative measures is crucial to successful patient experiences. 

Solutions like IRIS are helping in-home health organizations do all of these things through innovative technology solutions.

Recognizing Cultural Diversity in Healthcare 

The knowledge that certain minority patient populations are at a higher risk of developing diabetes means that healthcare professionals should not only be vigilant when treating minority patients, but they should also consistently seek new ways to understand how cultural differences may impact their patient interactions.

 

Furthermore, medical providers can work to provide support for minorities by making preventative screenings for preventative diseases more accessible.

IRIS makes space for cultural diversity in healthcare by offering a diabetic retinopathy preventative screening solution. This solution helps in-home health evaluation organizations, healthcare systems, and insurance payors boost their compliance rates while serving a larger portion of the patient population. 

IRIS is Creating Healthcare Equity  

IRIS is a leader in the preventative screening space for diabetic retinopathy, an eye disease that affects the diabetic population and causes blindness. We are on a mission to end preventable blindness and help healthcare providers give better quality care to diabetic patient populations by offering a screening solution that makes capturing fundus images easier and faster.

Interested in trying the IRIS solution and improving the culture of health? Reach out to us today for more information and to schedule a free demo.

 

FAQs

Why is cultural competence important in healthcare?

Cultural competence can impact the level of care that individuals receive from their healthcare providers. Cultural competence creates more equity across the healthcare system by educating doctors on cultural differences and implicit biases that could affect the level of care they provide. 

How to improve cultural competence in healthcare

Steps to improving cultural competence in healthcare can include: 

• Ensuring patients have access to interpreters when needed
• Incentivizing cultural competency training for healthcare staff 
• Connect with the community to gain their insight into your healthcare approach
• Recruit minority employees

 

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SM 187, Rev A