1.) Conduct an assessment of the health care environment where you work (i.e. health department, long-term care facility, specialty clinic, inpatient hospital, etc). (I work inpatient hospital)
2.) Specifically, examine potential barriers that may exist for a member of a minority group that has a significant presence in your community (i.e. Native American, Cubans, Hmong) (I live in florida, so we normally have a majority of Cubans and African Americans and some Middle Eastern)
3.) Using the criteria below (and explained in greater detail on pages 39 and 40), assess the potential organizational barriers to care in your work environment.
Explore ways to decrease barriers to health care for this minority group so that your organization can strive for cultural competency.

Write a 3-4 page APA essay, using two scholarly sources in addition to the textbook.
    Availability
    Accessibility
    Affordability
    Appropriateness
    Accountability
    Adaptability
    Acceptability
    Awareness
    Attitudes
    Approachability
    Alternative practices and practitioners
    Additional services
Here is pages 39-40 that discusses more in detail the criteria. Just in case the link doesnt work.

Barriers to Health Care

For people to receive adequate health care, a number
of considerations must be addressed. Several studies
in the United States have identified that a lack of fluency
in language is the primary barrier to receiving
adequate health care in the United States (Institute of
Medicine, 2001; Joint Commission, 2010a; 2010b; The
Disparities Solutions Center, 2010). One can only deduce
that this is true for other countries as well. Other
barriers include the following:

Availability: Is the service available and at a time
when needed? For example, no services exist after
6 p.m. for someone who needs suturing of a minor
laceration. Clinic hours coincide with patients
work hours, making it difficult to schedule
appointments for fear of work reprisals.
Accessibility: Transportation services may not be
available, or rivers and mountains may make it difficult
for people to obtain needed health-care services
when no health-care provider is available in their immediate region.
It can be difficult for a single
parent with four children to make three bus
transfers to get one child immunized.
Affordability: The service is available, but the
patient does not have financial resources.
Appropriateness: Maternal and child services are
available, but what might be needed are geriatric
and psychiatric services.
Accountability: Are health-care providers accountable
for their own education and do they learn
about the cultures of the people they serve? Are
they culturally aware, sensitive, and competent?
Adaptability: A mother brings her child to the
clinic for an immunization. Can she get a mammogram
at the same time or must she make another
appointment?
Acceptability: Are services and patient education
offered in a language preferred by the patient?
Awareness: Is the patient aware that needed services
exist in the community? The service may be
available, but if patients are not aware of it, the
service will not be used.
Attitudes: Adverse subjective beliefs and attitudes
from caregivers mean that the patient will not
return for needed services until the condition is
more compromised. Do health-care providers
have negative attitudes about patients home-based
traditional practices?
Approachability: Do patients feel welcomed?
Do health-care providers and receptionists greet
patients in the manner in which they prefer? This includes
greeting patients with their preferred names.
Alternative practices and practitioners: Do biomedical
providers incorporate patients alternative or
complementary practices into treatment plans?
Additional services: Are child- and adult-care services
available if a parent must bring children or an
aging parent to the appointment with them?
Literacy: Language has been identified as the biggest
barrier to health care, and not just for those for
whom English is a second language. See Chapter 3 to
identify patients with health literacy needs.

Health-care providers can help reduce some of
these barriers by calling an area ethnic agency or
church for assistance, establishing an advocacy
role, involving professionals and laypeople from the
same ethnic group as the patient, using cultural
brokers, and organizationally providing culturally
congruent and linguistically appropriate services. If
all of these elements are in place and used appropriately,
they have the potential of generating culturally
responsive care.