Purpose:

To develop a program to facilitate quality outcomes and improve patient care by increasing cultural awareness and understanding among nursing staff.

Significance:

This program addressed a need for increased cultural competency among nursing staff to improve patient outcomes as well as to support magnet status achievement for the Medical Center.

Design/Background/Rationale:

Educational programs aimed at cultural competency needed to be available to the professional staff on all shifts, in all departments. Providing access to this educational offering via the medical center's intranet allowed hospital-wide access within individualized time frames to increase dissemination of information.

Methods/Description:

Demographic information was considered and a needs assessment was developed at the initiation of this project to target high-priority groups being serviced by the Medical Center. The Purnell Model for cultural competence was chosen as an organizing framework for the project. Each month, a different cultural group was presented as a PowerPoint presentation on the nursing education department's Web page of the Medical Center's intranet. Staff was made aware of the availability of the monthly program and was invited to view the presentations. Hard copies of the presentations were made available on each nursing unit.

Findings/Outcomes:

Staff members were given a short questionnaire at the 6-month and 12-month phases of the project to determine the perceived value of the presentations. Nursing directors and managers highly encouraged completion of the questionnaire, although it was not mandatory. No identifiers were required on the questionnaire.

Conclusions:

Pending. Initial evaluation scheduled for October 2005.