Cultural Safety Action Plan: Enhancing Nursing Practice and Outcomes

This report outlines a comprehensive cultural safety action plan developed by a nursing student. The plan's goal is to become a culturally safe nursing professional by implementing the principles of cultural safety, focusing on key objectives such as learning about cultural safety, collaborating w...Read More

Running head: CULTURAL SAFETY
Cultural safety
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1CULTURAL SAFETY
Part one: Cultural Safety Action Plan
Goal:
To become culturally safe nursing professional by implementing the principles of
cultural safety
Objective:
The key objectives of my cultural safety action plan are follows:
 To learn about the principles of cultural safety and its application in health care
 To collaborate with interpreters to achieve cultural awareness and sensitivity
 To develop communication skills to effectively collaborate with patient and family
Resource or training required:
I will be able to achieve my objective in the following ways:
 I will participate in cultural safety continuous professional development program
to learn about cultural safety principles and ways to apply it in clinical setting
 I will take training in culturally sensitive communication to develop trustful
relationship with patient and effectively collaborate with patient to achieve my
goal of cultural safety action plan
 I will require human resources such as the participation of interpreters during
communication process to demonstrate effective cultural sensitivity in my
professional nursing practice
Anticipated barriers and strategies to overcome them
I feel that the following anticipated barriers will create challenges for me in
achieving my goal related to cultural safety:
 Hectic work schedule might act as a barrier during care as I may not get the
opportunity to record cultural preferences and values of patient during care
delivery. Due to the need to handle multiple patients, actively engaging with
patient will be difficult and it will act as a barrier cultural safety goals

2CULTURAL SAFETY
 Presence of language barrier due to diversity of patient might be a barrier in
achieving cultural competent care
 Lack of support from organization regarding cultural competence may act as a
barrier
In response to the anticipated barriers, I have developed the following strategies to
overcome the barrier:
 To develop cultural safety principle checklist so that all the principles can be
fulfilled without wasting extra time
 To collaborate with interpreter service to understand meaning and opinion of
patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) and overcome language gap in
care
 To interact with my senior nurse to suggest the need for organization support to
promote cultural safety and reduce patient’s dissatisfaction with care
Method of evaluation:
I will know my goal is successful if I achieve the skills for culturally competence
competition and I do not receive any complaint regarding to patient’s dissatisfaction with
care. Patient engagement in the care process and their interest in disclosing their
unique preferences will signify that my cultural safety action plan is successful. I think
my idea will be received well by my mentor because I have identified my own personal
skill limitation and developed appropriate strategy to develop my skills. Showing
commitment for improved practice and quality care is likely to increase interest in my
plan. Another significance of my plan is that I have indicated about interpreter service
and need for organization support to achieve my objective. Hence, I think this would
help to bring changes in the organization culture and promote delivery of protocols to
promote cultural safety in nursing care.
Part two: Rationale for the cultural safety action plan
Need for the plan:

3CULTURAL SAFETY
I considered the need for developing cultural safety action plan due to the
emphasis on adapting patient-centred care in nursing practice. As patients from diverse
cultural background come to seek care, the cultural processes related to health and use
of treatment differs in diverse ethnic group (Epner & Baile, 2012). Hence, cultural
competence is critical to understand and respect unique cultural preferences of patients
and meet those needs in care. The personal action plan is an endeavour to fulfil cultural
safety principles as well as maintain patient centred care responsibility. Another
rationale behind developing strategies to develop cultural sensitivity and cultural
competence skill is the prevalence language gap between patient and nurses and
issues of patient dissatisfaction with care due to nurse’s inability to understand cultural
preferences of patient. This kind of language barriers contributes to poor quality of care
as well as delay in care because of challenges in understanding patient’s issue
(Almutairi, 2015). Hence, my personal cultural safety action plan will help me to address
this issue in nursing practice by developing the skills to apply cultural safety principles in
care.
Method of implementation:
The key principles of cultural safety includes reflecting on one’s practice,
minimizing power differentials, engaging in effective communication with patient and
avoiding disrespect of patient through nursing action (Parisa et al., 2016). To develop
competency in applying these principle in my nursing practice, I have developed the
strategy of using training and continuous professional development in cultural
competence and culturally sensitive communication to achieve the goal of my plan.
Brooks, Manias and Bloomer (2018) give the evidence that culturally sensitive
communication can help to increase understanding about best practice when
communicating with culturally diverse patient. This strategy is also likely to enhance
patients experience and relationship with nursing staffs and achieve better health
outcomes. In addition, the plan to collaborate with interpreter is useful as White et al.
(2018) gives the evidence it is a best practice recommendation when language gap
exist between nurse and patients. This will ensure that unbiased information is
communicated and shared with the multi professional team.

4CULTURAL SAFETY
Key resources to implement the plan:
Educational resources and online resource related to culturally competent care is
crucial for the personal cultural safety plan. To implement my plan effectively, there is
need of organization support so that training and education needs related to the plan
are fulfilled. The support from the health care organization will ensure that appropriate
culture of safety is established and no patient is vulnerable to neglect because of
cultural violation in care. Cha & Park (2019) gives the evidence that system wide
support and implementation of unit level interventions by managers are necessary
elements for creating supportive work environment and transforming to culturally
competent organization.
Utility of identified strategies in overcoming barriers
In response to the barrier of hectic work schedule, developing checklist has been
planned to ensure that principles of safety is fulfilled during single interaction. Checklists
are appropriate way to assess the delivery of culturally competent care (Hughes, 2018).
Furthermore, collaboration with interpreter service has been identified to overcome
language barrier in nursing practice. Meuter et al. (2015) argues that when language
barriers affect communication with linguistic minority patient, then utilization of
interpreters is likely to enhance the accuracy of care. It will reduce distress occurring
due to language discordance.
Progress evaluation of the plan:
To evaluate progress of my plan and ensure that my plan is working, I will use
the strategy of reflecting on my nursing practice to identify how far I have been able to
apply cultural safety principle during nursing care. I will also take feedback from my
trainer or mentor to ensure that I have acquired all important concepts and identify the
need for further learning. In addition, to ensure final success of my plan, I will do survey
with my patients and inquired them about their satisfaction with the care received. I will
personally inquire about their satisfaction with care. If the patients are satisfied and they
report about no cultural safety issues, then it will help me to predict that my plan is
successful.

5CULTURAL SAFETY

6CULTURAL SAFETY
References:
Almutairi, K. M. (2015). Culture and language differences as a barrier to provision of
quality care by the health workforce in Saudi Arabia. Saudi medical
journal, 36(4), 425. doi: 10.15537/smj.2015.4.10133
Brooks, L. A., Manias, E., & Bloomer, M. J. (2018). Culturally sensitive communication
in healthcare: A concept analysis. Collegian.
Chae, D., & Park, Y. (2019). Organisational cultural competence needed to care for
foreign patients: A focus on nursing management. Journal of nursing
management, 27(1), 197-206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2018.09.007
Epner, D. E., & Baile, W. F. (2012). Patient-centered care: the key to cultural
competence. Annals of oncology, 23(suppl_3), 33-42.
https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mds086
Hughes, M. (2018). Cultural safety requires' cultural intelligence'. Kai Tiaki: Nursing New
Zealand, 24(6), 24-25. Retrieved from:
https://search.proquest.com/openview/cf25f9406d41c4867b957f11d03fc05e/1?pq-
origsite=gscholar&cbl=856343
Meuter, R. F., Gallois, C., Segalowitz, N. S., Ryder, A. G., & Hocking, J. (2015).
Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: A protocol for investigating safe and
effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second
language. BMC health services research, 15, 371.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-015-1024-8
Parisa, B., Reza, N., Afsaneh, R., & Sarieh, P. (2016). Cultural safety: An evolutionary
concept analysis. Holistic nursing practice, 30(1), 33-38. doi:
10.1097/HNP.0000000000000125
White, J., Plompen, T., Osadnik, C., Tao, L., Micallef, E., & Haines, T. (2018). The
experience of interpreter access and language discordant clinical encounters in

7CULTURAL SAFETY
Australian health care: a mixed methods exploration. International journal for
equity in health, 17(1), 151. doi: 10.1186/s12939-018-0865-2