Organizational Cultural Competence

Florida Hospital is a health system based on faith and is committed to offering whole person care via an integrated delivery network of caregivers and physicians partnership. The acute care beds that totals to 2,188 are situated in seven campuses throughout Orlando with services being offered in the outpatient, inpatient and emergency care settings. The hospital treats more than 32,000 inpatients and at least 53,000 outpatients annually. It belongs to the Florida Hospital system, which is a group of private hospitals that are operated and owned by the Adventist Health System.

The Adventist Health system belongs to the worldwide association of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Florida Hospital comprises of caring team of more than 16,000 health professionals. In Central Florida, it is the second largest private employer hospital that is non-governmental. Besides the employed members of staff, Florida Hospital has a total of 2, 913 volunteers who offered 283,500 hours of free service in 2008. The hours are equivalent to $4. 6 million.

Based on the American Hospital Association Survey of 2007, Florida Hospital is the only private owned hospital in Central Florida that is preferred by most people since it is the busiest hospital based on admissions (Florida Hospital). The 5 Year Overall Survival Rate for Cancer in Florida Hospital outperformed the comparisons made by the National Cancer Programs since 2003 to 2008. The competency for modernization in Florida Hospital has acted as a catalyst for various advances in industry.

Such industries include Nicholson Surgical Institute, Global Robotic Institute and Healthy 100 Campaign. In addition, the GetWell network that is responsible for facilitating the process of patient interacting with the departments in the hospital through the television located in the patient’s room has also been catalyzed by the hospital. Moreover, Florida hospital happens to first department in the pediatric emergency to be lit completely by ambient lighting. In 2009, the hospital became the largest organization which have ever been warded the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval.

The hospital is recognized for its expertise in treatment of cardiology, cancer, neuroscience, orthopedics and diabetes (Florida Hospital). Wide range of services Florida Hospital is a place where an individual can build his/her career while at the same time sharing the passion of patient-centric care and holistic healing. The hospital supervises most of its hiring and recruiting internally, continually filling technologist and nursing positions for its hospital network. Qualified applicants are offered an opportunity of applying for technologists, therapy as well as nursing jobs.

The Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences which was established in 1992 specializes in the healthcare professionals’ education and offers student an environment of receiving important clinical experiences linked to Florida Hospital. The hospital’s atmosphere welcomes all people from various faiths and background. This is because Florida is a city that is composed of a diverse and rich mix of races, faiths and nationalities among the neighbors, friends and co-workers.

The hospital hence generates a unique working environment where professionals in healthcare reach their potential and also shares the profit of healing people from around the world. The Hospital has been sensitive concerning the cultural diversity that exists among the patient’s population. It is the hospital’s priority to ensure there is cultural diversity among the employee population from the front line staff to the executive-level leaders. The hospital has been recognized as being among the best hospitals in the United States.

Its hospital network is composed of 17 hospitals that are a part of the Adventist Health System (University of Michigan, 2009). Responsibilities As a Christian hospital, its major obligation is to extend the healing ministry of Christ to anybody who visits there to seek medical attention. The hospitals strives to deliver high quality health service while at the same time showing a lot of concern for the spiritual and emotional needs of the patients while minding their physical condition.

The staff desires to serve the patients without delay, with a lot of dignity and consideration. The hospital is responsible for the success and security of the future of the institution’s resources. It protects its financial investment through strategic planning, fiscal management as well as effective marketing. The hospital is responsible for its community as portrayed by the individuals and the entire organization. In offering healthcare services, the hospital observes high ethical and moral standards (Florida Hospital).

Immigration in the US still goes on hence bringing different cultures and knowledge into the country. The healthcare workers in the Florida Hospital experience a wide range of cultural diversity more than in any other profession. As a result the nurses, care workers and physicians ought to be culturally sensitive regarding the patients needs. Over the last decade the hospital has experienced great challenges because of the changing demographics in the population of South Florida which is composed of various cultures and subcultures.

The healthcare providers in the hospitals are required hence to deal in balancing the science of medicine with beliefs, values as well as practices from patients around the health care and this can obviously have an important impact on the clinical encounter. With the different cultures and subcultures in Florida, the healthcare providers in Florida Hospital has experienced a problem of language barriers especially with individuals that are limited-English proficient.

However, the hospital has embraced and acknowledged the fact that it ought to incorporate services that will assist in solving problem linked to diversity of cultures (Stephenson, 2010). Recommendation It is important that the healthcare providers in Florida Hospital become aware of the patient’s belief and become capable of working with the patient to assist in managing clinical experience. As a result it is vital that the providers know how to function efficiently in the context of diverse cultural differences. To ensure quality patient safety and health care, good communication between the patient and health provider is paramount.

Poor communication may result to increased chances for misunderstandings and misdiagnosis. Everyone is aware of the negative consequences that result as a result of misdiagnosis. In case of a misdiagnosis, it is not only the patient that suffers alone but the hospital’s name is tarnished. To avoid that, the healthcare practitioners in the hospital ought to improve in communication skills. To curb the problem of language barriers, it is important that the hospital has a professional medical interpreter. The medical interpreter may assume many responsibilities basing on the needs of the patient and the provider.

The basic role of the interpreter is offering direct interpretation with no omissions, rephrasing or additions (Spector, 1996). Another solution to increasing cultural competency would be emphasizing on education and training to the hospital as well as to the healthcare practitioners. The fundamental focus for the training would be to promote cultural sensitivity and awareness in the hospital and provide effective ways of communication to the healthcare practitioners especially when it comes to interacting with their rising diverse patient base.

The training would provide to the health practitioners an overview of changes in demographics of the population, language access, importance of cultural competency and health literacy needed in offering service to the diverse population (Stephenson, 2010). The importance of cultural competency entails the facilitating awareness and respect for different cultures. In language access, the health practitioners ought to be taught the effective utilization of resources that deal with linguistic barriers to care.

Promoting effective communication, the providers and patients would be provided with tools for addressing and assessing health literacy. The hospital should avoid offering training on lecture-based method since research findings have revealed that the method would not offer effective training. Instead, the training ought to be designed in form of an awareness experience and experiential education so as to offer a better understanding based on cultural barriers that probably may be a challenge to a healthcare provider in providing quality care services.

Florida Hospital really has to incorporate many things to be perfectly culturally competent. The health practitioners in training ought to listen with understanding and sympathy to the perception held by a patient regarding their problem. The next step entails acknowledging and discussing the similarities and differences that exist between the practitioner’s perception and those of the patient. Finally the health practitioner is supposed to recommend and negotiate treatment while having in mind the cultural parameters of the patient (Stephenson, 2010). References Dave, A. (2010). Florida hospital embraces Orlando’s cultural diversity.

May 27, 2010/August 2, 2010 http://www. languagetrainers. com/blog/2010/05/27/florida-hospital-embraces- orlandos-cultural-diversity/ Florida Hospital. Florida Hospital Receives the Governor’s Sterling Award for 2010. May 13, 2010 /August 2, 2010 http://www. floridahospital. com/News/tabid/6696/default. aspx? articleType=ArticleView ;articl eId=80 Spector R. (1996). Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness. 4th ed. Appleton ; Lange. Stamford, CT;1996. Stephenson, A. (2010) Cultural Competency: A Strategy towards More Effective Communication in Clinical Encounters 2010/August 2, 2010