Hospital administration principles and practices

Multicultural Patient Care

The Market Orientation of the Family Birthing Center is no doubt, diverse. It is also an excellent avenue for health care reforms as the community hospital is forced to cater to the needs of people that speak 40 different languages, to do it well, and to serve as an example for other hospitals that multicultural patient care is possible and could be done in the best possible way (Noonan & Savolaine).

As the demographics of the United States continue to change to include more foreign nationals, health care professionals need to become increasingly aware of multicultural issues. Developing a greater cultural awareness of a particular client population can aid health care providers in improved care giving. With the steady increase of people from other countries coming to the United States, health care professionals have been asked to assess and respond to the needs of a more diverse community such as the one confronting the Family Birthing Center. Changes in the racial, ethnic, and religious make-up of this country challenge those in health care to assess how to deliver care to their clients. Many advanced health care professionals have recognized the need to respond to changing populations, including the American Nurses Association, which recognizes the importance of cultural preparedness and offers culturally diverse curriculum among its programs (Peterson). Likewise, the Family Birthing Center has taken the initiative to provide health care to its diverse community of immigrant patients in order to not let them be left out in terms of what they care to obtain from the hospital (Noonan & Savolaine).

Faced with an influx of immigrant mothers over the past decade, delivery rooms across the Washington area too are increasingly adapting not just to unfamiliar languages, but also to a new set of traditions and taboos. As an example, consider the following case. As his pregnant wife was wheeled into the delivery room, an African man made an unexpected announcement: According to the custom of his native religion, the couple's baby would need to be washed in wine immediately after birth. 'Not a problem,' said the nurses at Montgomery General Hospital. After quickly consulting a doctor to make sure the ritual was safe, the nurse manager launched a frenzied hunt for a glass of wine in the cafeteria. Then, under the father's proud gaze, the nurse manager gave her tiny charge the Olney hospital's first-ever wine sponge bath. "Of course this was very foreign to us," she said. "But to deny someone a tradition they've grown up with, at one of the most important moments in their life, would be wrong. It would be like telling a Christian their baby couldn't be baptized. (Post Staff Writer)"

It is important to note that one of the reasons why there are so many immigrant pregnant women flooding the hospitals of the country, is that these many of these women belong to family-oriented cultures where having big families is considered culturally bound. Hence, for the needs of these women, I, as the CEO of the Family Birthing Center would not only engage in the initiatives already taken by the hospital to provide comfort to many diverse people, but more.

Some issues that the staff finds difficult to deal with as regards diverse communities are:

family participation general health beliefs within several cultural and religious groups cultural and religious death beliefs, practices, and rituals the refusal of blood products by Jehovah's Witnesses language barriers

Jewish holidays kosher diet

Hmong beliefs about health, death, and surgery (Peterson)

To combat the difficulties relating to the above issues, I would ask my staff to be conducting an ongoing review of the literature to determine current cultural practices; maintaining a library of cultural and religious articles, books, and other resources; maintaining an ongoing awareness of cultural issues within the hospital; evaluating the current level of cultural awareness within the institution; developing staff educational programs that facilitate high-quality standards of practice; and building multicultural expertise among the hospital staff (Peterson).