Cultural competence in medicine is the ability of health facilities and health professionals to take into considerations the cultures and beliefs of other people apart from one’s own (Horvat, Horey, Romios, & Kis‐Rigo, 2014). Cultural competence is necessary within the health sector because it will assist in understanding the attitude and perception of patients towards certain illnesses. In addition, cultural competence will help in determining the right medication and diagnosis of patients in accordance with beliefs and values of different societies.
As a leader in the health care, it is appropriate to think of the most suitable strategies to employ in enhancing cultural competence within any organization (Horvat et al., 2014). Firstly, it will be a rule and a policy of my organization to interact socially with all the patients in order to accurately determine the culture and beliefs held by each one of them (Ohta, 2015). Secondly, I will strategically organize the nurses and other health care providers within the organizations into cohorts that will specialize in provision of specific guidance and interviews to the patients.
Based on the materials provided concerning the code of conduct and values that all health providers must apprehend, it will be suitable not to disclose previous errors to the board. The three errors encountered on the surgical unit should remain a secret during the meeting with the board in order to safeguard the status of the health institution (Betancourt et al., 2009). Despite the fact that the errors were relatively minor, disclosing them will be detrimental to the status of the hospitals since the public will view it as negligence on the part of the hospital.
Finally, principles of medical ethics consists of a number of principles one been the core policy on equity provision of health care services. In particular, the principle of equity requires that all patients be served as equally important therefore disclosing the surgical errors will place the patients on a different platform, which is against this principle (Betancourt et al., 2009). Secondly, the principle of quality health care services is another crucial principle in making up the decision of not disclosing the errors to the board. This principle requires that all health care services should of good quality and timely hence disclosing the errors will prove otherwise.
References
Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., & King, R. R. (2009). Improving quality and achieving equity: A guide for hospital leaders.
Horvat, L., Horey, D., Romios, P., & Kis‐Rigo, J. (2014). Cultural competence education for health professionals. The Cochrane Library.
Ohta, G. (2015). National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health and Health Care. Hawai'i Journal of Medicine & Public Health, 74(7 Suppl 1), 12.
