Promising results prompt participants to call for the ‘Ask the Specialist’ program to be made mandatory.
A training program designed to improve intercultural communication skills piloted at Royal Darwin Hospital has shown to effectively foster culturally safe communication among healthcare providers, with researchers saying it could serve as a model for cultural safety training for other jurisdictions.
The “Ask the Specialist Plus” program, consisting of one hour discussions teaching cultural safety to groups of no more than 25 staff over an eight-week period, was implemented in Royal Darwin Hospital’s ob/gyn and endocrinology departments in 2021.
Participants included medical students, doctors (interns, registrars, consultants, locums), midwives, allied health professionals and nurses, with 73% of participants filling out anonymous paper-based surveys evaluating the program on a five-point Likert scales across domains such as clinical relevance, relevance to Royal Darwin Hospital work, and behaviour change inspired by the training.
The findings showed the program had a mean overall assessment score of 4.5 out of 5, with most attendees stating that the program was an “unfulfilled need” in the free text comments attached to the surveys.
The most common behaviour change attendees committed to making following the program was working with interpreters, including booking interpreters ahead of time and recording explanations of common procedures to improve informed consent.
Most attendees agreed that the training should be made mandatory, with many requesting “ongoing refreshers” following completion of the program, the authors of the study said.
“The Ask the Specialist Plus training program has shown promising results in supporting culturally safe communication in healthcare by fostering critical consciousness among healthcare providers,” the authors wrote.
“The program highlights the value of investing in novel pedagogical practices, the importance of privileging First Nations knowledges, cultures and voices and supports the premise that combating racism is a shared responsibility among racial groups.
“We have provided evidence that training delivered during working hours to departmental teams, which included diverse professions and levels of experience over consecutive weeks, can encourage cycles of learning, action and reflection which leads to positive change.”
The basis for the program originated with ‘Ask the Specialist: Larrakia, Tiwi and Yolngu stories to inspire better healthcare’, a seven-episode podcast series in which Larrakia, Tiwi and Yolngu leaders answer questions about working with First Nations patients from local hospital-based doctors.
Managed by the Northern Territory Department of Health, Royal Darwin Hospital is a 360-bed hospital where approximately 70% of inpatients identify as First Nations and many speak English as a second language.