Week9 health project 430

TRAINX By Student Name

Goals and Objectives of this course:

 Inform emergency care providers of issues relating to cultural competency in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.

 Promote self-awareness about attitudes, beliefs, biases, and behaviors that may influence disaster services provided.

 Enhance skills of culturally competent care in disaster situations.

 Source: https://cccdpcr.thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/Content/Course1/Course1_Intro.asp

 Purpose: General medical education-Cultural competency of the first responder during natural or man-made disasters.

 Time required: Approximately 2.5 Hours

Lunden Burnett

has participated in the online educational activity titled

Cultural Competency Curriculum for Disaster Preparedness and Crisis Response

Activity Title Credit Hours Date Completed (i) Course 1 2.25 10/16/2019

Brian Mozelak 10/16/2019 Director, Continuing Medical Education Ciné-Med Inc.

 Emergency medical personnel

 First responders

 Psychologists

 Psychiatrists

 Social workers

 Dentists

 Anyone assisting in disaster rescue efforts

 This training is valuable to all health care professionals and first responders because emergencies can happen at any time in our field of work.

 Health care providers need to know how to serve and protect all American citizens, not just the ones we can understand.

 Health care professionals must educate themselves to avoid situations where care is delayed due to a language or other cultural barrier.

Five Elements of Cultural Competence:

1. Awareness and Acceptance of Difference

Organizations and communities are made stronger when they accept individuals from different backgrounds.

Different insights, beliefs and points of view make for a stronger and more prepared community.

2. Awareness of Own Cultural Values

The health care professional should take a cultural self- assessment to become aware of their own biases and cultural views.

3. Understanding Dynamics of Difference

There are many different ways cultures express and interpret information. When people from different cultures interact, misunderstanding is inevitable. Health care providers must be patient and respectful during these times.

4. Development of Cultural Knowledge

It is important to teach yourself about different cultures in the community you serve in order to effectively help them in a time of need.

5. Ability to Adapt Activities to Fit Into Different Cultural Contexts

This involves adapting health care/communities to fit all cultural differences and languages. An example of this would be to ensure a trained interpreter is on call and available 24/7.

National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS), also known as the National CLAS Standards:

 These standards are in place to advance health equity, improve health quality, and help put and end to health disparities that exist today.

 These standards provide steps for providers and organizations to ensure the delivery of culturally competent care.

 This training made me more culturally aware by helping me realize how underserved minority cultures actually are. It’s not fair how they are underserved in disaster emergencies just because of language barriers.

 It’s up to us health care and emergency professionals to educate ourselves on the cultural differences and provide the needed resources so we can better serve all people in emergencies.

Findings from the U.S. Census Bureau on hhs.gov:

 “According to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau, racial and ethnic minorities comprise over one-third of the U.S. population”.

 “Projections also showed minorities comprising more than 50 percent of the U.S. population by the year 2050”.

 This information that the training provided really opened my eyes to how much of our population speaks another language other than English and they all need to be accounted for to be able to receive the same quality care as anyone else.

 It’s important in my career working in the hospital to know the difference between and how to incorporate translators and interpreters to better communicate with patients and/or their families who speak different languages in order to provide the best quality care.

 In the hospital I will come across many different cultures, sometimes in emergent situations and I will need to know how to communicate with my patients and their families.

 While a natural disaster is not likely to happen at my work, it’s always good for any health care professional, from any scope of practice, to know how to treat a wide variety of populations and cultures.

 It could be a matter of life or death and it’s our duty to serve and protect the people.

 Negative: I felt the training was very long for just one course. It took me about 2 and a half hours to complete the pretest, go through the course content, answer questions after the content, complete the post test, and then the evaluation before I could get my certificate.

 Positive: I learned about strategies to better serve the 1/3 of the population who is underserved in disaster situations.

 Positive: This training made me very self aware of how culturally competent I actually am without even realizing it. I realized that I care for all my patients with a very open mind regardless of what their race/ethnicity is. I have the mindset that every person that crosses your path has the potential to teach you something new.

 This training included an example of first responders responding to a house call about an unresponsive infant. They encountered several difficulties communicating with the parents when they arrived, which ended up delaying the care for the infant, and they were unable to comfort the mother as the infant passed away at home while waiting for help to arrive. They felt completely helpless in their duties. This incidence must have haunted them forever.

 This is a perfect example of why we must have the proper resources in place to prevent these terrible situations from happening.

 A similar situation happened to me at my work, though not as severe, as the child didn’t die. There was a Japanese family admitted to our unit, and the child was very sick and seemed to only be getting worse. The family didn’t speak any English, and our team that was working on her didn’t know how to explain to them that we might have to put a tube down her throat to help her breathe. It was a very daunting situation to be a part of on our end, I can’t even imagine being on the family’s end.

 By increasing individual and organizational cultural competence, more members of our community can receive access to vital messages, services and safety.

 The ability to prepare, respond, and recover from a disaster and being able to reach as many members of the population as possible is essential in order to save time, resources, and lives.

United States Department of Health and Human Services - Office of Minority Health. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://cccdpcr.thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/Content/Course1/Course1_Intro.asp