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Study: Training can help improve communication with minority patients

Quality Improvement Monitor, May 26, 2005

Simple classroom lectures about different religious holidays and customs or Spanish language lessons focused on common medical terms help physicians and nurses connect with patients from different cultures and improve patient satisfaction, according to a pair of reports from Johns Hopkins researchers.

But the study, published May 25 in the online journal edition of Academic Medicine, falls short of showing any direct link between such training and the improvements in health of cultural and racial minorities.

"Far more rigorous testing is needed to prove that the training does more than just facilitate better interactions between caregivers and patients," says study co-lead investigator Eboni Price, MD, MPH, a senior clinical research fellow in the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The Hopkins analyses are believed to be the first detailed review of steps taken by academic medical institutions to address cultural differences with patients since a series of national reports from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) brought about mandatory cultural competency training of health professionals in 2004.

The IOM reports called for training as a key tool in reducing racial disparities in health status between minorities and whites.

According to study co-lead investigator and internal medicine specialist Mary Catherine Beach, MD, MPH, racial inequities in health status persist partly because of a failure in communication and lack of trust between the physician and the patient, a bigger problem than the ability to speak the same language.

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