Culturally Competent Healthcare Service - Essay Example

? Emerging Standards of Care Paper Introduction The healthcare delivery system of various organizations in the United s has been highly receptive in response to the increased concerns regarding the accessibility, quality as well as cost of the healthcare services. The healthcare service sector of the US is significantly playing a major role for the country’s increasing economic growth along with gathering information regarding the beneficial people from the country’s healthcare institutes. In this context of increasing pace pertaining to the healthcare divisions in the US, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is one of the major agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The organization is committed to associate effective research in order to render beneficial healthcare services to the people as well as to keep them more informed regarding the quality of the organization’s healthcare services (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). The organization is further well-known for its holistic role in the healthcare service through providing an effective healthcare support to people in various categories including culturally, linguistically diverse groups of people as well as the people with limited English proficiency (LEP) across various regions of the world (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). The paper intends to define appropriate culturally competent care of AHRQ and identify the issue or vulnerability with regard to providing healthcare services for culturally diverse people. Furthermore, it will focus on identifying the affects towards delivery of nursing care in places where standards are being met and places where neglected. Culturally Competent Healthcare Service Culturally competent care can be recognized as an ability that the members of the organizations should have in terms of providing healthcare services to people from various cultures. Culturally competent care involves the commitment from the members or caregivers of the healthcare institutions to demonstrate appropriate values, attitudes, verbal cues as well as body languages that are expected by the patients and their attendees (Goldsmith, 2000). In order to develop the demographic trends within the healthcare services, AHRQ is considered as one of the major and leading healthcare organizations, which facilitates a range of healthcare plans for multi-ethnic members as well as develops the services for culturally and linguistically diverse people (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). In the context of enhancing healthcare services, the organization is significantly involving its medical specialties according to the age group and culturally diversified patients. Moreover, AHRQ is further committed to develop its cultural sensitivity in order to refine the services according to the cultural trends. The cultural competence aspect of any healthcare institution may not involve the same process of treatment with which the organization treats its patients in very basic and typical ways. It is significantly focused on delivering higher customer value and understanding the various ways of satisfying a patient within the clinic, communicating with the clients in order to ensure the best potential outcome of the organization. With the huge and rapid growth related to diversification in the US, communities considerably compel the organizations to identify the increasing opportunities that are available in the country. Therefore, the caregivers of the organizations are highly focused and dedicated on the culture and linguistic behaviors of the communities in terms of providing healthcare facilities. The utmost effort and effective healthcare services of the members are significantly enhancing the culturally competent care of AHRQ in the growing market of the US healthcare industry (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). Served Population and Issues in the AHRQ AHRQ can also be considered as one of the three major organizations in terms of its position from the perspectives of United States Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) along with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as well as National Institute of Health (NIH) within the country. The main objective of the organization is to develop the health care services as well as enhance the safety and efficiency of healthcare providers for all the American communities. The organization seeks to conduct, sponsor and disseminate research in order to provide an effective assistance of healthcare services to its each and every client. Furthermore, the healthcare organization significantly offers its range of healthcare services with both private and public healthcare divisions. The research works of AHRQ extensively enables the organization to serve with the superior processes of healthcare service for its clients (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). According to the perspectives of AHRQ’s patients, it can be stated that the organization directly and indirectly involves with all the Americans who are seeking to acquire healthcare assistance. Since, the organization significantly involves range of healthcare services and research works in order improve the quality, assurance as well as efficiency of healthcare services are necessary for various age groups and culturally or linguistically diversified people within the US. With due consideration to the people priorities of AHRQ, the organization is focused on certain segments of the patients such as, the elderly, women, children, low-income groups, minority groups and person with disabilities seeking chronic treatments along with living in remote and rural areas (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). Although AHRQ has been incurring huge amount of expenses for implementing advanced technologies, patient populations are not being entirely benefitted since majority of the US citizens are not covered under health insurance policies. This in turn affected the reputation of AHRQ due to the increased costs charged by the organization. However, AHRQ has proved to be an organization that provides cost-effective services to its clients in terms of providing healthcare services. The organization extensively conducts various research processes that use Cost-Effective Analysis (CEA) during the treatment process. Moreover, the organization possesses an advanced and effective diagnosis process for its patients which is considerably lower and can be affordable for each income-group people within the US (AHRQ, 2001). Cultural Competences and Standards of AHRQ The notion of diversity represents unending opportunities for the multi-cultural partnerships, however, it can also create large amount of cultural gaps which is essential to be linked in order to reduce health disparities. The cultural competencies of AHRQ are one of the major assets to its various offerings of healthcare facilities. With this concern, culturally competent healthcare institutions are able to provide facilities to access and deliver quality and value-based healthcare services with the help of their advanced technologies in decreasing health discrepancies. According to the scenario of American society, it is becoming gradually more diversified in various areas including gender, ability, ethnicity, race and language (Doorenbos, Schim, Benkert, Borse, 2005). Thus, with reference to AHRQ’s cultural competencies, it has been witnessed that the organization has financed research and education activities since past few years. Moreover, the organization has also developed the strategy of TeamSTEPPS, a teamwork system that was designed to offer an influential solution in order to develop group effort and communication method within the organization. It is an evidence-based system intended to optimize performance among the groups of healthcare professionals and enable them in order to resolve speedily and effectively any health related issues or concerns (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). Moreover, the organization is presently developing an essential and effective module in order to address the people with LEP which will enable the medical practitioners to guide with valuable information for identifying the research errors within their services and various issues pertaining to LEP patients. Furthermore, project RED (Re-Engineering Discharge) is also considered as one of the effective cross-cultural competences of AHRQ which was intended to develop the discharge process of the hospital in order to enhance patients’ safety as well as to prevent re-hospitalization. The module significantly provides effective information regarding their diagnosis and educates them to look after themselves at home. Furthermore, it helps in maintaining records of appointments of the patients before discharging and examining them frequently by visiting their homes in order to check the medication process and improvement post discharge. Project RED also facilitates the patients by providing up to 30% reduction in overall treatment charges in case of re-hospitalization of the patients in any AHRQ divisions within the US (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). According to the National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS), healthcare organizations must need to possess language assistance service through involving interpreter or bilingual office staff which will be offered to the patients free of cost. Therefore, it has been recognized that AHRQ is meeting the national standards with regard to their culturally as well linguistically healthcare services to different US communities (Office of Minority Health, 2012). Possible Consequences in Nursing Care The activity of nurse staffing in a hospital has a major relationship in providing patient safety and to increase the quality of rendered healthcare services to an individual. In order to remain focused on patient safety issues and other major constraints within the healthcare service, AHRQ has provided financial assistance to develop a number of projects on identifying the impact of patient safety process. The organization has thus implemented seven types of different projects that include staffing of hospital nurse as one of the categories of the projects. The research works of AHRQ is highly focused to inspect the serious issues of various staffing levels which might lead to invite different types of faults within the nursing process in a healthcare organization. The critical issues that can create various types of distraction in the organization are stress, fatigue, sleep deprivation organizational culture and shift work (Stanton, 2004). Moreover, the organization has also deliberately emphasized on training the nursing staff in order to cope up with the advanced technologies in the patient procurement service. The organization further seeks to adopt various tactical and strategic plans for providing effective and efficient healthcare services to its wide range of patients. Therefore, the nurse staffing groups of the organization significantly involves in the strategic and technological advancement that the organization implements to improve its healthcare services. In addition, AHRQ also provides an effective preparation module for the nursing staff in order to efficiently deal with culturally and linguistically patients during their treatment period. In the context of providing healthcare services for different cross-cultural communities, it can be stated that the staffing process of the organization extensively involves a range of culturally diversified citizens in the American communities. Therefore, AHRQ is considerably focused to develop its nursing staff as well as the management of the organization to offer exceptional healthcare services to each and every community within the US (Doorenbos, Schim, Benkert, Borse, 2005). According to Care Quality Commission (CQC), adequate numbers of highly qualified, experienced and expertise candidates must be employed by the healthcare organizations in order to ensure safety and provide welfare services to patients across the various communities in the US. Thus, it can be stated that AHRQ is not entirely meeting the standards in terms of nurse staffing which can significantly impact on the organization’s delivery of nursing care (Royal College of Nursing, 2012). Conclusion In keeping with the present increasing competition among the global healthcare institutions, the service providers are seeking to increase their business performances in order to achieve significant competitive advantages. Furthermore, in relation to providing healthcare services to culturally and linguistically diversified people, AHRQ has been recognized as one of the major contributors among the modern healthcare institutions in order to achieve a sustainable and effective competitive advantage in the global healthcare business. According to the population report of United States Census Bureau, it can be stated that the ethnic minority population of the US will consist of 35% of total population within the year 2020 (Stanton, 2004). Therefore, it can be acknowledged that the cultural competences of healthcare organization will be an effective and successful element for the healthcare industry within the US. With this concern, AHRQ plays a crucial role in the healthcare industry through providing efficient healthcare services to the increasing number of ethnic, racial, culturally as well as linguistically diversified population within the US in the future. 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Focus on cost-effectiveness analysis at the agency for healthcare research and quality. Retrieved from http://www.ahrq.gov/research/costeff.pdf Doorenbos, A. Z., Schim, S. M., Benkert, R., Borse, N. N. (2005). Psychometric evaluation of the cultural competence assessment Instrument among healthcare providers. Nursing Research 54(5), pp. 324-331. Goldsmith, O. (2000). Culturally competent health care. The Permanente Journal 4(1). Office of Minority Health. (2012). National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS). Retrieved from http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlid=15 Royal College of Nursing. (2012). Mandatory nurse staffing level. Retrieved from http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/439578/03.12_Mandatory_nurse_staffing_levels_v2_FINAL.pdf Stanton, M. W. (2004). Hospital nurse staffing and quality of care. Retrieved from http://www.ahrq.gov/research/nursestaffing/nursestaff.pdf Read More