Patient-Centered Care: A Case Study

This article was selected, because the author provides nursing professionals an overview of skills, frameworks, mnemonics, and cultural assessment tools that can be utilized in their practice to provide effective patient-centered care even in the presence of cultural conflict (Campinha-Bacote, 2011). As a future nurse educator, my role will encompass assisting students to provide patients culturally competent care “... even when the patient’s health beliefs, practices, and values are in direct conflict ...” with that of the student or medical team to achieve positive patient outcomes (para. 1).

Two concepts discovered are that patient-centered care and cultural competency aim to provide patients high-quality care, but each focuses on different aspects of quality (Campinha-Bacote, 2011). The goal of patient-centered care is to provide all patients individualized care by enhancing relationships among healthcare providers and their patients (Campinha-Bacote, 2011). Whereas, cultural competency aims to promote health equity and reduce disparities in healthcare by targeting disadvantage populations such as people of color,
socioeconomically disadvantaged, or those with mental or physical disabilities (Campinha-Bacote, 2011). According to Campinha-Bacote (2011), clearly understanding the meaning and goals of each concept is significant, because cultural competence is viewed as an extension of providing patient-centered care. Being culturally competent mandates nursing professionals to attain a unique set of skills that allows him or her to provide effective patient-centered care (Campiha-Bacote, 2011).

As an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Coordinator, I often spend a lot of time working closely with healthcare providers to promote compliance with best practices to reduce patient risks for acquiring healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
Several practice changes that can be integrated into my role as a nurse to enhance cultural competency include nurturing an environment that recognizes diversity among healthcare providers, identifying methods to better assist providers to address cultural conflicts, and to spend more time directly communicating with patients from diverse backgrounds. By doing so, I can also support other providers to “... validate, refine, or modify existing values, beliefs, and practices about a cultural group, and to develop cultural desire, cultural awareness, cultural skills, and cultural knowledge (para.
18).

Two skills that I would like to teach other nursing professionals to implement in practice to enhance their ability to provide patients culturally competent care include taking time-out to explore personal (beliefs, values) biases that may exist towards disadvantage populations and how to use cultural assessment tools to collect relevant cultural data. According to Campinha-Bacote (2011), the purpose of performing “... a cultural assessment is to obtain accurate information from the patient that will allow the nurse to formulate a mutually acceptable and culturally relevant treatment plan for each patient problem” (para. 7). The topics above were selected, because failing to explore one’s own personal biases towards others or the inappropriate use of cultural questions to obtain data can significantly impact a nurse’s ability to provide patients cultural competent care, which in turn, can jeopardize patient safety, and outcomes.