Since the increase of the number of languages talked in a New York City suburban from 32 to over 100, there has been a crucial requirement for Westwood Hospital to go in the direction diversity in order to remain effective. This has been as a result of influx of refugees from the other countries within a period of ten years. Thus, an organization, particularly hospitals, needs to embrace multiculturalism in the work place due to the diverse clients they are handling.
Impact of a Diverse Workplace on Patient Outcomes
The case of increased number of languages spoken in this New York suburban is reflective what is going on the entire of United States. The minority groups (African Americans, Hispanic, Asian, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders) will collectively in future outnumber the majority Whites by 2060. Thus, there is an acute need to have a nursing workforce which reflects this type of projection to deliver services that improve patient outcomes.
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As a response, the organization has begun initiatives that are aimed at improving cultural competence in the nursing workforce. They are as follows;
The hiring of staff is aimed at diversity of cultures.
The recruitment process is done is such a way that the priority is given to nurses from the minority communities. For instance, when recruiting, the individuals from the Hispanic speaking population are given priority as compared to those coming from the white population. However, this does not mean that the nurses from the majority population are sidelined; it is only that they are overrepresented and thus they need to be balanced. This leaves us with a workforce that has variety of culture. It also helps integrate the underrepresented minority groups into the nursing practice ( Phillips & Malone, 2014) .
Training our nurses cultural competence
It has been found that most people in a population hold stereotypes about certain cultures. In addition to the hiring, the hospital works with other collaborators to engage the nurses by offering financial and academic support towards teaching the nurses on cultural competence.
Diversity on delivery and Patient Outcome
The nursing profession is grappled with the problems of nurse shortage for a long period now. This has continued to compromise service delivery for many healthcare organizations. Therefore, recruitment of nurses from minority group can help in the solution of this shortage ( Jackson & Gracia, 2014) . In turn, this aids in the ease of service delivery as there is an increased nurse to patient ratio.
Also, the recruitment of a diverse workforce ensures there is a higher coverage of the treatment for culturally diverse populations. For instance, when a non-English speaking Hispanic patient checks in and gets a nurse from the same background, they have easy time explaining themselves and thus the care can be effective. Such nurses have lived the experience of the patients and know the exact need when problems arise. Also, they are predisposed enough to carry out research and designing promotion initiatives that target minority groups. As a result, this reduces the health disparity that has been rocking the healthcare system for a long time ( Sullivan, 2004 ).
Integrating Multiculturalism and Diversity into Practices and Policies
The organization constructs policy frameworks that incorporate multiculturalism in the practices. When making these policies, the provider appreciates the fact that there is a need for a culturally competent system to address the healthcare disparity among minority groups. As a result, the organization’s top management consists of people from diverse cultures, gender, and age. Then structure of the leadership team is such that it incorporates the female, male, youth, and people from the minority groups. One of the things that the healthcare provider noticed that a diverse management team has varied backgrounds and experiences that would help in generating new ideas. This is representative of the employee and patient population as well. The nurses and other healthcare professionals are selected from diverse backgrounds and cultures. For the patients, it is evident that the facility operates in a suburb with over one hundred languages hence there are high chances of a diverse client populations.
Table 1 Management Structure
| Title | Race | Gender |
| CEO | Caucasian | Female |
| COO | African American | Male |
| Managing Director | African American | Male |
| CFO | Hispanic | Female |
| Deputy managing director | Asian | Male |
| Head of clinical department | Caucasian | Female |
| Head of Nursing department | Pacific Islander | Male |
The recruitment and retention policies of this organization are tailored towards meeting the specifics that are required for the employee structure to reflect the diverse community in which we operate.
The policy ensures that there is ethos of equality and diversity for everyone in the selection and recruitment.
Westwood Hospital ensures that the appointments made are the best for the organization and that there is transparency which is essential in providing equal opportunities for all.
As a means to enhance equality, the organization does the following;
Encourages candidates from underrepresented populations to apply, including African Americans, ethnic minorities and disabled groups. This is done in a bid to ensure that the structure of the staff reflects the wider community and that it is inclusive for everyone.
Ensures all the documentation for recruitment will promote multiculturalism and diversity including gender, race, and disability, and are also non-discriminatory and free from images that insinuate stereotype.
Statistically monitors the recruitment and selection process and amend it if need be. This ensures that all the profiles of the staff represent the general community.
Retention policies include the following;
Yearly honest and in depth appraisal to the permanent staff.
Supporting the nursing staff with balance between work and home commitments.
Developing a high standard environment in which the staff works and equipped with state of the art equipment in order to reduce burnout.
Promote communication between the employee fraternities to address the points of imbalance in the working environment.
Despite the efforts in the policy framework, there still emerge some gaps between them and the best practices that need to be addressed. First, there is a need for certified employee language interpreters. These are supposed to act as intermediaries between the non-English speaking patients and the English speaking nurses, or in short, the people of different languages. The other gap is the requirement that employees take cultural sensitivity classes in the hospital, especially including birth and death rituals. As much as the hospital encourages cultural competence and provides support for the education, the organization lacks enough frameworks to instill the classes in the employees.
Importance of Integrating Multiculturalism and Diversity
Westwood Hospital is representative in all aspects of diversity including race, ethnic, age, and disability. The sole importance that exists in multiculturalism in nursing field is the enhanced patient-provider relationship. It prevents misunderstandings and miscommunications, which are important in solving issues related to drug misuse. It also reduces the conflict that can ensue between the patient and the provider ( Jackson & Gracia, 2014) . For instance, the nurse may understand why Vietnamese women do not want the heads of their children to be touched, and the Japanese do not want someone who looks straight into their eyes.
One way of integrating diversity in the organization is through conducting gender identification sensitivity classes. In this case, the individual nurses are assisted in gaining knowledge on the different gender roles and sex and how they can be incorporated into practice. The other method incorporated is to distribute the diverse nurses into units that represent the model of the community ( Jackson & Gracia, 2014) . In this case, the nurses from a single background are assigned to the patients from similar populations. This reduces the need for the interpreters and increases opening up of the patients.
References
Jackson, C. S., & Gracia, J. N. (2014). Addressing health and health-care disparities: the role of a diverse workforce and the social determinants of health. Public Health Reports , 129 (1_suppl2), 57-61.
Phillips, J. M., & Malone, B. (2014). Increasing racial/ethnic diversity in nursing to reduce health disparities and achieve health equity. Public Health Reports , 129 (1_suppl2), 45-50.
Sullivan, L. W. (2004). Missing persons: minorities in the health professions, a report of the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce.
