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Cultural Competency and Healthcare: Summary
CULTURAL COMPETENCY STANDARDS (CLAS)
HEALTHCARE PROVIDER GUIDELINES: ADDRESSING DISPARITIES IN HEALTHCARE Healthcare providers must develop and maintain a comprehensive approach to cultural competency to ensure effective care delivery across diverse populations. At its foundation, cultural competency awareness requires providers to understand how different cultural backgrounds influence health beliefs, treatment preferences, and overall healthcare outcomes. This understanding serves as the basis for addressing health disparities, where providers actively work to identify and eliminate preventable differences affecting underserved and diverse populations. Patient-centered care forms the core of culturally competent healthcare delivery, moving beyond traditional approaches to develop individualized care plans that respect cultural beliefs and preferences. This approach is strengthened by providers' recognition and management of implicit bias, the unconscious prejudices that all people have, and can influence patient care decisions. Through ongoing self-reflection and professional development, healthcare providers can better identify and mitigate these biases. LEARNING TIP!
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health developed the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards to ensure equitable and effective healthcare delivery across diverse populations. These standards serve as a fundamental framework for healthcare organizations striving to provide culturally competent care. Principal Standard: Ensuring Equitable, Understandable, and Respectful Care The principal standard forms the foundation of CLAS and emphasizes three key elements: 1. Equity in Care Delivery 2. Understandable Healthcare Communication 3. Respectful Care Approaches Communication and Language Assistance A crucial component of CLAS standards is ensuring effective communication across language barriers. Engagement, Continuous Improvement, and Accountability: The standards emphasize ongoing development and monitoring of cultural competency. Community Collaboration and Service Effective implementation of CLAS standards requires strong community partnerships. Cultural Competence in Practice • Applying cultural competence in public health practices can accomplish the following within the healthcare world: ○ Create synergy between patients, providers, and greater community through ongoing health promotion and educational opportunities ○ Develop perpetual engagement for improved outcomes that creates a more equitable and just healthcare system by focusing on self-awareness, knowledge, expanded skillset, meaningful encounters, and increased desire to improve outcomes
For effective understanding and application of cultural competency, healthcare providers and staff should develop cultural competency training focused on reflection, developing intuitive responses and critical reasoning skills. Cultural competence training should include information about the served community.
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