Improving Cultural Competency among Healthcare Providers Working with Refugee Patients

Background: Increased diversity of the United States population has resulted in the presence of greater disparities in healthcare. One way to address factors contributing to health disparities has been to increase cultural competency in healthcare. Evidence from a review of the literature supports the idea that understanding aspects of cultural competency that are lacking among specific healthcare organizations are helpful to develop programs to address the areas of need. Purpose: The purpose was to complete a quality improvement project to evaluate if an educational intervention based on a specific model would lead to increased level of cultural competence among healthcare providers. Methods: The Campinha-Bacote Model was used as the basis of the educational program. An electronic format of The Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competence among Healthcare Providers – Revised was used as the pre-and-post-test to evaluate the efficacy of the educational intervention. Implementation Plan/Procedure: For this project, cultural competency baseline levels of providers consisting of doctors, nurse practitioners, and therapists (N = 6), working with refugee patients were assessed, followed by an educational intervention via PowerPoint. A post-test and evaluation survey was administered after the intervention. Results: Statistically significant increases were noted in mean cultural competency scores (11.83 points). Increases were noted in the measured constructs of cultural awareness (3.00 points), knowledge (3.84 points), and skill (3.34 points). Implications/Conclusion: Ongoing educational intervention may lead to increased levels of cultural competency for healthcare providers. Further practice improvement projects should be completed to evaluate the effect of increased cultural competency on patient outcomes