The following links provide resources on developing cross-cultural clinical skills. Below you will find tools to help deal with patient hostility and discomfort, how to elicit a social medical history, and various other cultural communication skills. Many of the resources are developed for healthcare practitioners but are strongly recommended for anyone interested in developing their communication skills in cross-cultural situations. Please also see the Online Training Module and the Health Literacy Sections.
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National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) were developed by the Office of Minority Health to help healthcare organizations and providers to help implement more culturally and linguistically accessible services. You can view the standards in the link above or on the Rationale, Context, and Definition page on this site.
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Compendium of Cultural Competency Initiative in Health Care was formed by the Kaiser Family Foundation to generally describe a number of initiatives to achieve culturally competency in healthcare in a single document.
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The Cross Cultural Health Care Program (CCHCP) provides a comprehensive list of resources including video clips, books, and test (assessment) materials for culturally appropriate care across different groups. You can find assessment tools on the site here.
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DiversityRx has a number of tools and assessments to aid in developing cross cultural communication skills. Two commonly used tools include:
- Toward Culturally Competent Care: A Toolbox for Teaching Communication Strategies is a curriculum developed by the Center for Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco. The curriculum contains materials that focus on teaching clinicians to recognize cultural differences in patient interactions and use specific communication skills to improve patient care.
- The More Than Words Toolkit Series is a resource for clarifying the translation process and providing a roadmap to help health care organizations improve the quality of their translated materials in order to get better results.
Online Training Modules
Identifying one’s own biases is an important step in assuring that quality of care provided is not hindered by a patient’s ethnicity, culture, or race. The following are some tools for self-reflection and assessment for not just healthcare professionals, but anyone interested exploring their underlying attitudes and beliefs:
- A Physician's Practical Guide to Culturally Competent Care is sponsored by the Office of Minority Health and is a free, online, and continuing medical education activity.
- This learning module helps to explore cultural competency in healthcare through looking at engaging cases. Registration is open to physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and all healthcare professionals.
- Also available from the Office of Minority Health is a nurse component, found here.
- Quality Care for Diverse Populations is a Web-based training program developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians to assist physicians and other health care professionals in becoming more culturally proficient in the provision of care to their patients. Five video vignettes depicting simulated physician-patient visits in an office setting are available for free viewing. Also available here for download is a Quality Care for Diverse Populations Manual and cultural competency self-assessment questions.
- From the Health Resources and Services Administration:
- A free online module, called Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural Competency, and Limited Language Proficiency is available to improve patient communication skills, increase awareness and knowledge of factors that affect communication with patients, and implement patient-centered communication practices.
- American Medical Association Web Streams
- Several five-minute programs have been developed by the American Medical Association as part of its informational web-streaming programs, Educating Physicians on Controversies in Health (EpoCH). These are relevant to the cultural competency and health disparities training of health care professionals (e.g. Health care disparities: Language barriers in your practice; Racially tailored medicines: Is there a science behind the marketing?) and are available for free at this link.
- A 22 minute DVD: Working Together to End Racial and Ethnic Disparities: One Physician at a Time, which comes with a suggested reading list, is also available for a nominal cost ($10 for AMA members; $15 for non-AMA members). You can order it here.
- Cultural Competence Online for Medical Practice (CCOMP)
- Funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a Clinician's Guide to Reduce Cardiovascular Disparities is an online module to learn effective cross-cultural approaches to care for African-American patients with cardiovascular disease, especially hypertension. The module includes videos with real patient scenarios and case-based modules to increase awareness.