The Role Of Cultural Competency In Health Care

Cultural competency is the abilities, knowledge and skills of providers and health care organizations to provide effective healthcare services to meet the social, cultural and linguistic needs of patients with a unique cultural background (Purnell, & Paulanka, 2013). Culturally competent health care improves the quality of care and prevents racial and ethnic health care disparities.
In order to become a culturally aware health care workers need to accept and embrace the diversity of culture. They need to increase respectful engagement with the diversity of the population and understand and appreciate the differences, which promotes patient- centered care that respect and address the values and preferences of the diversity of the population