Building a Multicultural Team

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Building a Multicultural Team

Cultural diversity and tolerance is one of the pillars of foundation that the US is well-known for across the globe. In fact, diversity in the US continues to grow at rapid rates. According to the 2010 census more than one-third of the US population reported their race and ethnicity to be non-Hispanic white, demonstrating a 30% increase since 2000. This increase in diversity calls for the need for multicultural, culturally competent healthcare teams in hospitals and other healthcare institutes such as nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, etc. As a matter of fact, various research shows that multicultural healthcare models can improve patient outcomes by overcoming the language barrier (1 in every 10 individuals in the US are not fluent in English) and providing culturally sensitive outreach interventions.

Registered dietitians, especially those in management positions need to embrace this model in their department to help improve the organization’s overall services, decrease communication barriers with patients, and to improve patient compliance, satisfaction, and quality care and services by focusing on culturally sensitive patient services and patient-centered care. In addition, managers can expect to see higher productivity with less time expended miscommunicating, ensuring patient safety by less misunderstanding between the patient and RD. Besides incorporating a nutrition team that consists of multicultural, culturally competent nutrition professionals, RDs in management can encourage culturally sensitive care by working closely with foodservice management to ensure that the menus are culturally and ethnically diverse, and translated into multiple languages that align with the cultural composition of their patient population.

-KP

References

Tempest, M. (2012). Building a multicultural team. Today’s Dietitian, 14(7), 36. Retrieved from http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/070112p36.shtml

Seman, S. J. (2014). One in ten people living in the United States can’t speak fluent English. Townhall. Retrieved from http://townhall.com/tipsheet/sarahjeanseman/2014/09/24/one-in-ten-americans-cant-speak-fluent-english-n1896278

Comments

  1. ksu internsNovember 27, 2016 at 6:14 PM

    Because the United States is a multicultural nation, it is important for dietitians to be able to verbally communicate with their patients and clients. Equally important is understanding the patients/clients cultural and ethnic practices. Moving forward, our profession should began to actively recruit other cultures and ethnicities to reflect the diversity of our country.

    VS

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