results from a single-center study showed.
Doug Brunk/MDedge News
Dr. Miquell O. Miller
“Cultural competence is valued by patients, and there is a potential for training providers to be more culturally competent, focusing on their behaviors,” lead study author Miquell O. Miller, MD, said at the annual Digestive Disease Week.
While the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (J Gastrointest Surg 2016;20[5]:879-84) and other medical organizations have recognized the importance of workforce diversity and cultural competence of providers, little is known of the relationship between cultural competence and patient-reported outcomes in surgery, said Dr. Miller, who is a general surgery resident at Stanford (Calif.) University. To investigate this relationship, she and her colleagues recruited surgeons, oncologists, gastroenterologists, and advanced practice providers to complete a validated online survey that measured two domains of cultural competency: awareness and behaviors. They matched these scores with the 10-item Press Ganey provider care scores from 2017 to 2018. Next, the researchers conducted a linear regression analysis with mixed effects to account for clustering of patients within providers. They also adjusted for provider bias by measuring social desirability, “which is the tendency for respondents to put a more socially appropriate answer as opposed to the true answer on the cultural competence survey,” Dr. Miller explained.
A total of 1,322 Press Ganey satisfaction surveys were available for 29 providers. Their mean age was 48 years, 59% were white, 72% were physicians, and 28% were advanced practice providers. They practiced in GI oncology (41%), gastroenterology (31%) and colorectal surgery (28%). Dr. Miller reported that providers who participated in the survey had a mean cultural awareness score of 6.2 out of a possible 7 points, while the mean cultural behavior score was a 4.1 out of a possible 7 points. She and her colleagues observed that providers who had high levels of cultural competence on the behavioral assessment were positively associated with Press Ganey patient satisfaction (P = .039).
“I think we do a poor job of training our providers to be culturally competent, but there are multiple ways to improve behaviors, by teaching people and by having real training for our providers,” Dr. Miller said.
She acknowledged certain limitations of the study, including its single-center design and the fact that not all providers had Press Ganey scores available. The study was funded by the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and the Black Academic Surgeons Resident Research Award. Dr. Miller reported having no financial disclosures.