Capella University School of Nursing and Health Sciences

Name (presenter)
Capella University
School of Nursing and Health Sciences
Course
Date
Diversity Project Kickoff

Introduction to diversity in healthcare
Project goals
1. To find ways on how to improve service delivery of Lakeland clinic
2. Addressing clinical diversity issues and finding ways to overcome them
3. Selecting a committee of experts who will spearhead the operation of
the clinic in the community.
Introduction
 Over the past years Lakeland Clinic has operated under pressure and
since the Haitian community had a negative perception on the
healthcare providers working in that clinic. Records show that when
the facility begun, it recorded good number of patients but over time,
the number gradually reduced due to a misunderstandings caused by
workplace incivility and poor work-life balance.
 The hospital facility needed to take into account the diversity
experience that their employees have besides professional and
academic experience they have during job application. When recruiting
employees to work in Haiti, their cultural aspect should be evaluated
such as language, beliefs, and norms..

Introduction to diversity in healthcare cont‘d
 Moreover, work-life balance of the employees was an
issue of concern since the employees who were believed
to come from other diverse backgrounds found it hard to
accept and appreciate the diverse lifestyle of the Haitian
people.
 The complains raised by the Haitian people included
workplace incivility that was practiced through
unsociable speech and behavior of clinical officers
against the community patients. These experiences
will help the employees to best handle and tolerate the
patients of diverse needs without discrimination or
misunderstandings (Brown, Beck, & Elhammoumi,
2017).
 Therefore, it proved necessary to recruit people with the
diverse clinical understanding of the Haiti people.

Reasons for the low entry of patients at Lakeland clinic center.
Workplace incivility
 The clinical incivility is practiced through rudeness of employees who
do not perceive the diverse nature of the Haitian people. In turns it
hindered their social abilities as they could not understand each other
due to language barrier.
Work-life balance
 The employees who were not from the Haitian culture found it tough to
balance the work and daily life as it in some way differed with that of
the Haiti people. The cultural differences served as the main stumbling
block. The community members had a different view and timing of the
clinical officers who came from different diversities. Their expectations
of the clinical officers were beyond manageable in terms of the
contributions that were expected from the them.
 In one way or the other, the employees who could understand the
French language had hard times communicating with the patients
without interpreters. Thus the committee to be formed should set
French language and skills as a mandatory requirement when
recruiting employees.

How to Solve these challenges
 For any organization to succeed, it has to advice its employees to embrace
cultures of different societies.
 The core values thus needs to be cultivated in each and every employee in
the clinical organization.
 Culture is deliberate and is defined based on daily lives lived by every
individual.
 Philosophically, diversity tolerance provides strength to every organization
that embraces it.
 Therefore, service delivery by the employees should be racism, cultural,
religion, sexual orientation and identity free (Brown, Beck, &
Elhammoumi, 2017).
When the above mentioned solutions are implemented, the Lakeland clinic
based in Haiti will regain back its normal operation. The society technocrats
after consultation will provide amicable acceptance of the facility. Their
approval will sound appealing to the community thereby restoring service
delivery to the people of the Haiti.
Moreover, the employed clinical officers who do not understand French
language or most of the Haitian cultures, will have to be trained on that note
to boost their performance and goal attainment of the organization.

Leaders that should lead the project
 For clinical diversity to effectively be addressed in Lakeland clinic
center, the following leaders should be incorporated in realigning
the service delivery and in order to appeal to the community
members.
• Clergymen
• Community women representatives
• School principals
• Clinical officers
• Area administrators
• The executive and directors of the organization.
Each and every leader mentioned above at least is a professional and
influential in the community. Besides they control a large number of
people who can turn their commitments to the clinic, the business
will run as usual. Based on the set goals for this project, the above
mentioned members are considered worth for reviving the status
quo of the clinic operation.

In my capacity, I would choose to use a transformational leadership style as it is an inspiring
leadership style to both the employees and the community to work together in transforming the
nature of the organization (Purnell, & Fenkl, 2019). Based on the defined goals, Lakeland clinic
needed transformation that could be sort by addressing by clinical diversity among the staff and
members of the society. The style has the following strengths and weaknesses;
Strengths Of tranformational Leadership Style
It allows for quick formulation of a vision that can help foster prosperity
It heavily relies upon ethics and cultural acceptance.
Trasformational leadership motivates people through its inspirational approach
It raises curiosity and advances enthusiasm among employees in an organization
The leadership style lowers the turnover cost and helps in retaining fruitful employees as it
shapes the unfruitful ones.
It gives room room for managing and accepting change.
It improves the communication and expressional skills in nurses.
Weaknesses of Transformational leadership style
It is a leadership style that can not survive without the availability of strong communication
It might overlook reality and truth as the leaders might be too obssessed with unrealistic
tranformations.
It does not give room for different opinions from others. The leaders expect their subjects to
agree with their moral rightiousness and vission.
Sometimes, it can lead to burnout of the employees.
The leadership style I would embrace to bring
change

Reasons why the above mentioned leaders were considered worth.
 Community members are represented in various dimensions. For the clinic to effectively operate in
the community, their concern and approval are highly regarded.
 The clergymen will give the spiritual advice on how to deal with spiritually related issues, that the
medical operation can not solve as that is what is perceived to be their role in community to treat and
give spiritual intervention. They will help the clinic management to understand the societal approach
to treating some diseases in a way that conforms to the culture of the Haitian people.
 The school principals will advice on matters pertaining students accept and their daily routine
(Purnell, & Fenkl, 2019). There are many student who might be in need of clinical attention but due
to the negative of Lakeland clinic the school principals might choose not to admit their students in
this clinic but when they are involved in the administration, they will send their sick children to the
clinic for checkup for they are sure of its operation.
 The area administrators will provide security and necessary approval for the operation of the clinic in
the community. The area administrators for example chiefs, mayors or congressmen are trained
professionals on security matters and social distribution of people. Thus they will serve a greater role
in reconciling the community and the clinic.
 The clinical officers will provide civic education and collect necessary data needed to improve the
situation of the clinic
 The executive and management of the organization will provide an assurance of collaboration and
assurance that the clinic will adhere and conform to the community way of life and services

Items related to leading and fostering teamwork and collaboration
 Effective communication
 Encouraging good interpersonal relationship
 Creating a good team history
 Advocating for collaboration among various departments
 Arranging for frequent meetings to enhance communication
 Establishing transparency and adequate information sharing
 Engaging all the members and the administration effectively
(Purnell, & Fenkl, 2019).
For these items to be realized, the communication approach
can be through seminars, board meetings if they form part of
board members. As well, we can use social media platforms
such as video conferencing for members that might not be in a
position to make a physical attendance to the meetings. The
other forms of leadership are also good and practical and can
be practiced to bring changes.

 Purnell, L. D., & Fenkl, E. A. (2019). Transcultural
diversity and Health Care. In Handbook for
Culturally Competent Care (Pp. 1-6). Springer,
Cham.
 Brown, S. T., Beck, M. S., & Elhammoumi, C. V.
(2017). Addressing Cultural Diversity and Inclusion
in a College Of Nursing. Journal Of Best Practices
In Health Professions Diversity, 10(2), 141-141.
References