In order to deliver nursing care to different cultures, nurses are expected to understand and provide culturally competent health care to diverse individuals. Culturally competent care is tailored to the specific needs of each client, while incorporating the individual’s beliefs and values (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2006, p. 90). By being culturally competent, nurses are able to help improve health outcomes by using cultural knowledge and specific skills in selecting interventions that are specific to each client (Stanhope & Lancaster). Therefore, nurses “should perform a cultural assessment on every client with whom they interact with” (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2006, p. 90) to help understand client’s perspectives of health and illness and discuss culturally appropriate interventions. In this paper, the author will demonstrate how nurses can utilize a cultural heritage assessment tool to help develop a cultural competent nursing care plan, which can be referred to in Appendix A and B. By culturally assessing client, nurses will be able to identify the needs of culturally diverse individuals and find out if what’s important to the culture is really important to the person in terms of specific health needs.
