...HERITAGE ASSESSMENT PAPER Lara G. Heier Grand Canyon University: NRS- 429 4/9/2016 The Heritage Assessment tool is used by healthcare professionals in order for them to find out the patient’s cultural, religious and ethnic background. Culture is defined as an element of ethnicity, consisting of shared values and behaviors associated with a particular group. (Edelman, et al, 2014) In order to improve the quality of care, it’s important to understand the patient’s culture and the health practices they traditionally use. Regarding the Heritage Assessment tool’s usefulness, it will allow the healthcare professional to understand the patient as a whole due to the fact that it addresses the individual’s heritage, cultural, religious and ethic background and behaviors and how they may relate to the patient’s views on health and wellness. To be Culturally Competent, one has to be able to provide healthcare based on the total patient situation- ethnically, culturally and spiritually. The Heritage Assessment Tool is designed to open up dialogue in order for the healthcare professional to have a better understanding of their patient and allow them to provide more effective healthcare with the patient’s own health traditions having been assessed. This, ideally, will result in a holistic approach to healthcare. (Giger & Davidhizar, 1990) Common Health Traditions Based on the cultural heritage information received from the Heritage Assessment Tool filled...
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...Heritage Assessment Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V Common health traditions are influenced by our ethnic and religious upbringings. Nurses strive to meet the needs of their patients and be respectful of their culture. The three ethnic groups analyzed were Native American, Black African American and Hispanic. Each culture faces a unique set of circumstances regarding health promotion. Using a heritage health assessment offers insight on each person individually. Applying a heritage health assessment is useful in many ways. Nurses can gain insight on the whole person and give patients the opportunity to share what is important to them pertaining to their care. For example, after completing a heritage assessment the nurse would better understand the patient’s level family involvement, the importance of traditional ethnic values regarding health promotion and treatment. As the patient describes their heritage the nurse can gain valuable insight on select health issues pertaining to the particular culture. If a black African American is being seen for headache pain, the nurse could correlate the culture and ethnicity to a possible diagnosis of high blood pressure. Black African Americans also have a greater incidence of cancer. The nurse also recognizes that church and family are of great importance. The patient may also place value in the use of traditional home remedies. The nurse must be careful not to stereotype based on appearance alone. The needs...
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...Family Centered Health Promotion: Heritage Assessment Tool Janice Ward NRS-429V May 31, 2015 Family Centered Health Promotion: Heritage Assessment Tool A critical skill in nursing is to assess multicultural patients in the USA today. The culturally competent nurse is able to evaluate the needs of clients and families through the use of a Heritage Assessment Tool. The successful completion of a Heritage Assessment Tool will provide the basis for understanding traditional health and illness beliefs and practices. The incorporation of the patient’s The Journal of Transcultural Nursing states as it’s 6th standard of practice for transcultural nursing the following: Nurses shall recognize the effect of health care policies, delivery systems, and resources on their patient populations and shall empower and advocate for their patients as indicated. Nurses shall advocate for the inclusion of their patient’s cultural beliefs and practices in all dimensions of their health care. (Lauderdale, Milstead, Nardi, Purnell, Douglas, Pierce, Rosenkoeter, Pacquiao, Callister, Hattar-Pollara, 2011) In order for the nurse to support their patient in receiving the best of health care it is imperative the nurse understand their patient’s heritage. “Health care organizations should ensure that patients receive from all staff members effective, understandable, and respectful care that is provided in a manner compatible with their cultural health beliefs and practices...
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...Heritage Assessment With the increase in diverse population in the United States, the nurses in America need to Know the importance of culture and heritage importance in health care. .People from different parts of world carry different cultures . Each culture overview health in different ways. Understanding the culture make it easy to provide quality health care to individuals and families. Every culture have their own health belief to that what causes sickness and who should be involved in curing and what sort of remedy to be taken to cure the disease . The more the understanding of the culture of a patient the better the care the patient receives.”The Heritage Assessment Tool” is designed to find a patients cultural, religious, family and ethnic back ground. The norms and practices in each culture is varied. The “Heritage Assessment Tool” gives nurse a picture of the patients understanding regarding the health beliefs ,illness ,health and health promotion. This helps for the plan of developing a culturally appropriate health care. In this paper the goal of the author is to summarize the results of the assessments done on three different families of different cultures and utilize the results to plan the health promotion based on different cultures. The ...
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...Heritage Assessment: Cultural Differences Jennifer L. Moul Grand Canyon University: NRS-429V March 30, 2014 Heritage Assessment: Cultural Differences Heritage assessment tools are used as a guide to assist in developing plans based on an indivudals cultural assssement. Heritage assessment tools prompt the interviewer to ask questions that pertain to their family’s background such as parent origins, race, relgious beliefs, customs, and practices. Gaining knowledge of an individual’s background will allow a health care professional to build plans that will be achievable. Achieving optimal health requires assessment and treating the individual human being. Reflecting on Jean Watson’s theory around caring, “Theory specifically involves the caring of a person’s mind, body, and soul” (Zerwekh & Claborn, 2009). Watson’s 10 carative factors represent the human caring values, the following factors are essential and necessary to understand and treat the whole-human being: Maintain humanistic view, Promote faith and hope, sensitivity of oneself and others, development of trust, acceptance of feelings positive or negative, systematic approach to problem solving, teaching and learning, create a healing environment, support the gratification of needs, allow for spiritualism. Recognizing the Most Precious and Powerful Source is the Human Being (Edelman, Mandel, & Elizabeth. 2014), defines culture “as an element of ethnicity, refers to integrated patterns of human behavior that...
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...Heritage Assessment Grand Canyon University Family Centered Health Promotion 03.20.2016 Kristine Matteson In healthcare there is ethnic and cultural diversity in our patient population. Healthcare workers consider the cultural and ethnic backgrounds while interacting and treating a patient. As nurses we have the responsibility of being culturally competent. This allows us to integrate cultural health related beliefs in treatment plans and allows us to bridge any gaps between cultural and ethnic health maintenance, protection and restoration beliefs. Many of these health related beliefs come from a person’s heritage. Culture and heritage are terms that are similar and can be used interchangeably. Culture refers to “the learned and shared beliefs, values, and life ways of a group that are generally transmitted from one generation to the next and influence people's thoughts and actions.” (Smith, 2009, pg. 272) Heritage is defined as “something inherited at birth, such as personal characteristics, status, and possessions or anything that has been transmitted from the past or handed down by tradition.” (Webster, n.d) This paper focuses on the interview and assessment of three families from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds using the Heritage assessment tool...
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...Running head: HERITAGE ASSESSMENT TOOL: EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT Heritage Assessment Tool: Evaluation of Different Cultures and Individual Views of Health Micaela Simon Grand Canyon University Family-Centered Health Promotion 429V Melanie Escobar RN MSN August 31, 2012 Heritage Assessment Tool: Evaluation of different Cultures and Individual Views of Health The Heritage Assessment Tool can be used as as a reliable tool to assess, health maintenance, protection and restoration of individual cultural beliefs. This evaluation helps meet the needs of different patient populations to provide quality holistic care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the Hispanic, Native American, Chinese, and the author’s own personal cultural beliefs from perspectives of health traditions, maintenance, promotion and restoration of health. The objectives are to identify different families and the own common health traditions based of the cultural heritage. Evaluate and discuss how the families ascribe to traditions and practices. The evaluation of these different cultures reveal similarities and differences in traditions that may help provide holistic optimal health delivery. The definition of cultural awareness is an individual’s awareness of their understanding between themselves and other backgrounds, attitudes to health and specific cultural values (Cultural awareness, n.d). Cultural competence refers to knowledge and skills that must be obtained to care for culturally...
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...Heritage and Health November 10, 2012 Heritage and Health Three families one each being of Caucasian, Hispanic and Thai cultures have been explored using the Health Assessment Tool. This paper compares health traditions of these families of different cultures and discusses how understanding an individual’s culture leads to better relationships which allow health maintenance and promotion to be more effective. Let us start by defining key terms essential to this paper. Culture is the values and beliefs specific to a group or population and is an element of ethnicity. Ethnicity is “a reference to a collective identity, a sense of uniqueness within the larger society and a distinction from non- members” (Edelman, 2010). Values and beliefs influence our behavior and our actions and by knowing what influences a culture and recognizing an individual’s particular culture will help guide health maintenance and promotion. The National Alliance for Hispanics Health stated in 2004 that the longer a generation is in this country the further away they get from their own culture (CDC's Health Community Program). Therefore, by using the Heritage Assessment Tool a nurse is able to understand where a person’s heritage begins and how the person identifies with their heritage. As an example, this tool can help identify if a client belongs to a religious institution, in which, they may want to have access for support. If they...
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...Heritage assessment Danielle Sumner Grand Canyon University Heritage assessment Introduction The Heritage Assessment Tool can be adopted as a dependable tool to gauge, health maintenance, restoration and safeguard of personal, cultural beliefs. The adoption of health assessment tool helps meet the prerequisites of diverse patient populations to offer quality all-inclusive care. The following paper reviews the assessment of three culturally dissimilar families, and demonstrate how a nurse would continue with health promotion centred on the variances in health traditions between the three cultures. The three cultures include Hispanic culture, Native American Indian culture and White American culture. The objectives of this essay are to recognise different cultural families and their own shared health traditions grounded on their cultural heritage. Practices and traditions will be evaluated and how th families ascribe to them. The assessment of these diverse cultures discloses likenesses and differences in traditions that can help deliver holistic ideal health delivery. Health Maintenance The value a patient puts on his or her perceived family support system and values can greatly affect their overall health maintenance. Two families interviewed one from an American Indian background, and the other from a Hispanic background placed a great value in their family associations and relationships (Askim-Lovseth & Aldana, 2010). Families from both backgrounds were able to...
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...Heritage Assessment Chiugo Alexander Grand Canyon University: NRS-429 V Heritage Assessment September 19, 2014 Heritage Assessment America is a melting pot of people from divergent ethnicities in the world leading to disparity in the healthcare system. In other to improve the healthcare outcomes in the nation, there is a need to reduce the insightful disparity in health care status amongst the various ethnic groups that suffer great disproportionate poor health. With advancement in education and technology, there has been an increase in the awareness of how beliefs, values, religion, language, and other socioeconomic factors affects healthcare promotions and quest for seeking medical treatment (Green & Reinckens, 2013, p. 16). In other to achieve the health promotion process as outlined by World Health Organization, we will have to perfect our application of cultural competency to health care and hence the heritage assessment tool. Using information obtained from three families, this paper will analyze the importance of using the heritage assessment tool in assessing, evaluate, and compare their cultural beliefs, and how they subscribe to them and then develop health plans that lead to holistic care. Usefulness of Applying a Heritage Assessment in Evaluating the Needs of the Whole Person Heritage Assessment Tool represents a complete overview of a person’s way of living. It encompasses a person’s history, system of worship, relationship to the immediate and extended...
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...Cultural diversity has brought cross cultural interactions beyond geographical boundaries. Every culture has values and beliefs which reflects cultural and social influences, relationships, and personal needs in an individual. Health cultural values “shape human behaviors and determine what individuals will do to maintain their health status, how they will care for themselves, and others who become ill, and where and from whom they will seek health care” (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). Transcultural nursing is a practice to transform health care and help people of diverse cultures. An analysis of Leninger's vision for the work of transcultural nursing indicates that there are many barriers and issues in health care, particularly for persons from diverse cultures. For instance, health care for poor Americans and ethnic minorities is less than optimal because they are unable to pay for services because of lack of insurance (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). Ethnicity is a reference to a collective identity, a sense of uniqueness within the larger society, and a distinction from nonmembers. Ethnicity denotes a sharing of customs, food, dress, music, religion, and of symbols, such as language, among those who see themselves as fellow members of the group (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). An ethnic group may have “common geographic origins, family patterns, language, religion, values, traditions, symbols, music, dietary preferences, and employment patterns” (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). The ethnic...
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...THE HERITAGE ASSESSMENT TOOL: A CULTURAL VIEW OF THE PATIENT The Heritage Assessment Tool: A Cultural View of the Patient Grand Canyon University: 439v March 11, 2012 The Heritage Assessment Tool: A Cultural View of the Patient The Heritage Assessment Tool is a series of 29 questions designed to determine a patient’s ethnic, cultural, and religious background. The tool gives nurses an understanding of the patient’s traditional health and illness beliefs and practices so that culturally appropriate interventions can be initiated (Flowers, D.L., 2005). The following paper summarizes the assessment results of three culturally different families, and uses those results to show how the nurse would proceed with health promotion based on the differences in health traditions between the three cultures. Health Maintenance The value a patient places on family values and their perceived support system can greatly influence their overall health maintenance. With two of the families interviewed, one with a Hispanic ethnic background and the other from an American Indian background, both families placed great value in their family relationships. Both families were able to express knowledge of an extended family network and were active participants of that social system. The family unit is the most important support system to both cultural groups. Askim-Lovseth & Aldana (2009) explains that in an extended family network all “family members are expected...
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...Cultural Influences on Health Grand Canyon University Family Centered Health Promotion NRS-429V October 15, 2015 Cultural Influences on Health The heritage assessment is useful and gives the health care professional a detailed picture of how cultural differences influence health. The three individuals that were interviewed place importance on the cohesiveness on their families in health and illness. The family influences from the older members in their cultures place importance on folk medicine. When a member of the family is ill, they apply their faith and pray for that person. They value their religious belief in curing an illness with modern medicine. The food preferences varied somewhat from the different cultures however, pastries were common at cultural celebrations (Heritage Assessment Tool, 2015). It is evident that is important to be culturally competent before assessing a patient. It removes biases about a culture and the health care professional is culturally sensitive to give effective quality care and education. Polish Culture A large percentage of Poland’s population practices the Roman Catholicism religion. There is an order of priests, monks and nuns in the Roman Catholic Church. Rituals are part of the Catholic Church’s religious services. They encourage the continuation of folk culture like roadside shrines that are built and maintained by the community. There are yearly pilgrimages to these shrines such as Lankorona. On February 2 of each year...
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...Heritage Assessment M. J. F. Grand Canyon University March 5, 2015 NRS 429 Relative to health, cultural values form human behaviors and determine what people will do to preserve their health status, how they will care for themselves and others who get sick, and from whom and where they will find health care. While the diversity of the American people is one of our best assets in this country, it is also creating one of our greatest challenges; to provide health equity, which means to provide the highest level of health for all people (Edelman, 2013). One step in accomplishing this is for nurses to have awareness and culturally competent practices in order to function successfully in this rapidly changing multicultural society. Learning about a patient’s heritage allows the nurse to create a patient centered plan of care that meets their cultural needs which will produce the best outcome. This document contains information gathered from families of Hispanic, Indian (from India) and Black (from Turks & Caicos Islands) descent. They were given the Heritage Assessment tool (Spector, 2000) to complete which helps determine how much a person identifies with a traditional heritage. Knowing how much they identify with a culture can give you insight into understanding their health values and behaviors. In addition, they were also asked questions about their health traditions, how they promote, maintain, and restore their health. The purpose of health protection and...
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...Usefulness of heritage assessment tool Heritage assessment toll is introduced to collect information about different cultures, nationalities and which helps healthcare professional to build a cultural competencies. The tool is used to investigate a particular ethnic group or population. As the United States becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, every individual’s basic needs to be addressed. Heritage assessment tool helps to identify and acknowledge one’s own cultural heritage and beliefs and how it influences one’s attitude and behavior in providing care .Culture is a specific pattern of behavior, which include belief, custom knowledge, and skills that distinguishes any society from others. Heritage assessment tool determine how much a person adhere to their traditions. A traditional person always observes his or her traditional culture very closely. This tool is useful in performing heritage assessment depending on how deeply a person identify and answer question and also help to understand health tradition of a person. The greater number of positive response shows the person’s greater identification with traditional heritage. Assessing an individual’s cultural heritage is the first and most important step to Identify the communication barrier of a person from another culture. Each culture views the world differently. Based on their beliefs and practices, people from different ethno cultural heritage define health and illness differently. Their cultural background...
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