What is cultural competence?

This is the capability of the organization and skilled providers to deliver efficient health care services which meet cultural, social, and linguistic needs for people with health problems. A health care system that is culturally competent plays a significant role in improving health outcomes and care quality and also contributing to ethnic health disparities and racial elimination.

 Are there steps nurses can take to achieve it?

Curiosity: nurses should be curious in creating cultural encounters. They should also expose themselves to different cultures .they should care for patients visiting them in their homes to experience their first-hand information culture and gain a new perspective on their own culture and beliefs. Through this experience, cultural immersion becomes more culturally competent. For instance, if a nurse is in a hospital and the patient speaks a different language, they should try to communicate with them.

Accounting for health, cultural and social aspects: nurses should understand the socio-cultural factors affecting people’s health. They should also incorporate the elements into their care. After nurses have understood their patient culture, they can implement a culturally competent care regimen. For example, when nurses include with the cultures food make patient comply with prescription given.

Finding good ways to connect: nurses should always build good trust with patients. Due to a language barrier between nurses and patients, they may work with a translator who will interpret the message communicated.

How does it differ from cultural humility?

Cultural competence is learned ideas about other cultures. It becomes competent to those working together in providing service. It also makes us understand the culture that is not ours. Cultural humility entails recognizing that there are things we can’t know that we do not know, and most probably, people never know about a culture that is not theirs.

Briefly describe how a lack of cultural sensitivity may impact patients’

health and well-being and their future encounters with the healthcare system.

Cultural sensitivity in the health care field helps in providing efficiency regards. Many groups of people and providing quality care to them hence making them being health. Lack of cultural care will not enable many cultures to have different beliefs in how to maintain health. Cultural sensitivity goal in health care helps provide communication and end bias among other communities; hence lack of it will be a significant problem in patients’ health as it affects the type of health care decisions.

 Why is it more important to focus on cultural humility rather than achieving

cultural competence?

Cultural humility is essential because it takes cultural competence to another life. The knowledge of cultural humility is beneficial. When practicing cultural humility, we critically consider and self-evaluate what we believe and how it influences the way we respond to other cultures. It’s also valuable for achieving cultural transformation in a very critical way as compared to cultural competence.