In the nursing workforce, it is important to have culturally competent health care. Health care workers must understand diversity in order to provide appropriate care. The purpose of this post is to define diversity, describe the benefits and barriers of diverse health care. Finally, discuss my own cultural background and how it affects the nursing care I provide.
Diversity is recognizing that each individual is different and unique. The concept of diversity involves acceptance of everyone’s differences. Those differences are age, race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. As a society, we need to appreciate and embrace our differences.
There are many benefits associated with providing diverse health care. Diverse health care allows hospital systems to be efficient and sensitive to cultural differences in our patient population (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). This fosters collaborative decision making between the health care team and the patient. Another benefit is when you have nurses that are part of a minority group themselves; there is a greater connection with patients who are also in that group (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). This connection will lead to increased compliance
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One barrier identified is the low number of minorities working in health care (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). This could be related to a poor educational system in the community or their socio-economic status. Another reason and barrier for these minority groups is due to college recruitment not enlisting them for enrollment (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). This lack of recruitment is often because of the limited number of faculty available to accommodate these students. This creates a shortage of diverse nurses in the workforce, which research shows usually serve minority and underserved communities (Hope, 2014). Diverse nurses create improved quality of health care and increase access to