Leadership Commitment is Key to Successfully Operationalize Cultural Competence

Nurse executives serving as organization leaders can make the difference for their organizations and clinicians to engage in and provide culturally competent services to patients. Strategies and infrastructure required to initiate and sustain cultural competent practices require resources, which can present challenges for any leader in a resource constrained healthcare environment. However, the vision, skill and commitment of a particular nurse executive helped place culturally competent services as a context for bridging and eliminating disparities, improving outcomes and providing quality healthcare services to all patients. This presentation will describe how one nurse executive envisioned and led the operationalization of a cultural competent program in a tertiary academic medical center. The leadership and clinicians of the organization were empowered to view culturally competent care as an essential tool to actualize organizational outcomes.  The organization’s strategic planning involves the allocation of resources to initiate and sustain an effective culturally competent program.