The population of the United States has continued to grow ethnically and racially diverse in the past few decades. While such a diversity has not been always reflected in the workplace, there have been significant improvements in the past few decades that has seen the United States becoming more diverse. One of the specific work environments where diversity is a critical topic of concern is in nursing and healthcare. Some of the diversity issues that are present in healthcare include gender equality, ethnic or cultural differences, sexual orientation, and age. As the United States population becomes increasingly diverse, there is a need to have a nursing workforce that is more diverse. This paper analyzes the importance of workforce diversity in the nursing profession and considers the diversity issue of African Americans low population in the workforce and how the issue impacts nursing practice.
Importance of Diversity in Nurses
Diversity in the profession of nursing is critical as it provides an opportunity to be able to provide quality care to patients. Diversity in nursing is expected to improve communication with patients. Improved communication translates to better care health outcomes as it places the needs of the patient at the central part of patient care. Crawford et al. (2017) analyzed the importance of diversity through communication and observed that a culturally diverse nursing workforce should reduce miscommunication throughout the nursing care. An improvement of diversity was found to result in better outcomes such as better therapeutic relationships and an improvement in patient safety and satisfaction.
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A diverse workforce ensures that nurses can have an adequate relationship with the patient as they will be able to understand the needs of the patient. The diverse nursing workforce will be able to understand the belief systems, cultures, preferences, religions, and customs of the patient. This ensures that the approach to care is delivered by taking note of being sensitive and culturally aware of the needs of the patient. The nursing workforce would thus be able to customize their care to the specific needs of the population. The patients will also be more accepting of the type of care.
How Diversity in Nursing Impacts Culturally Competent Nursing Care
The issue of diversity in nursing ensures that the care delivered puts into account the culture, food, customs, religious views, and the environment of the patient. Scrandis et al. (2018) examined the issue of cultural competence in the nursing workforce and determined that a culturally aware team will have the best policies and have the best practices that should assist nursing managers realize the goal of providing high quality care to the diverse population. Different cultures have different health beliefs and without having a culturally diverse workforce could mean that the care provided is not culturally sensitive. Having a culturally competent nursing workforce means that they will have adequate knowledge regarding the cultural ways and should create an individual care plan that is based on the cultural patterns of the patient.
Issue of African Americans Diversity in Nurses
The diversity issue that was chosen was that of the African American population. Based on the analysis of the National Center for Health Workforce (2017), it was determined that the total population of African American nurses amounted to 301,400 and this represented 11% of the total nursing workforce of 2,806,100. The analysis revealed that the African Americans were underrepresented in the nursing workforce and that the population of nurses was not proportional to the diversity of the general United States population. The analysis of the workforce showed that nursing workforce had a low population of African Americans. However, there have been significant strides made to solve this such as enrolling more African Americans to take courses in nursing.
Impact of African American Population on Nursing Practice
There underrepresentation of African Americans in the nursing workforce has resulted in several negative outcomes for the population. Brooks-Carthon et al. (2016) analyzed the impact of low Black population and determine that hospitals that served higher concentrations compared to hospitals that had lower populations of black patients had their patients dissatisfied with the quality of care. The study specifically observed that Black patients encountered more readmissions compared to their white counterparts. One of the reasons for this was the black population could not be able to find nurses of a similar race that would cater for their needs. The result was that the patient experience was reduced and it led to a reduction in the quality of care. Black patients that live in rural areas or regions that have a large concentration of black populations would thus require a workforce of the same race in order to serve them adequately. By having a low population of Black nurses means that this population would be served inadequately.
Conclusion
The analysis revealed that diversity is important to improve nursing care and that there is a low representation African Americans in nursing leading to a reduction in the quality of care. A culturally diverse nursing workforce ensures that nurses would be able to understand the cultural needs of the patient and this can improve the quality of care. When the Black population was analyzed, it was established that the diversity of the nursing workforce was not a representative of the inherent diversity of the general population of the United States. This was found to have several consequences and negative impacts such as poor patient satisfaction and reduced quality of care for the population.
References
Brooks-Carthon, J. M., Lasater, K. B., Rearden, J., Holland, S., & Sloane, D. M. (2016). Unmet nursing care linked to rehospitalizations among older black AMI patients: a cross-sectional study of US hospitals. Medical care, 54(5), 457.
Crawford, T., Candlin, S., & Roger, P. (2017). New perspectives on understanding cultural diversity in nurse–patient communication. Collegian, 24(1), 63-69.
National Center for Health Workforce Analysis. (2017). Nursing Workforce Projections by Ethnicity and Race 2014 – 2030. Retrieved from https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bhw/health-workforce-analysis/research/projections/hrsa-bhw-rn-lpn-factsheet-12-17.pdf
Scrandis, D. A., Ogbolu, Y., & Fitzpatrick, G. (2018). Barriers and facilitators of care for diverse patients: Nurse leader perspectives and nurse manager implications. Journal of nursing management, 26(1), 3-10.
