Foreign Born Healthcare Workers in the U.S., Quality of Care, and Leadership

Abstract

The focus of the article is a midsize community hospital in New York City, where the percentage of foreign-born workers, healthcare workers, doctors and nurses is higher than national levels. The hospital is located in the area containing more immigrants and higher concentrations of immigrant groups than any other part of the city. Dynamics related to the hospital’s 90% non-white, mostly foreign-born, multilingual workforce appeared to influence hospital’s capability to change and improve performance. Also, observations and issues about community and organizational demographics, language context and proficiency, immigrant assimilation rates, contrasting country cultures and other related topics are explored in the article. This exploratory study revealed numerous areas that could be relevant to the quality of care, patient safety and organizational effectiveness, including language proficiency and context, cultural perceptions, immigrant assimilation and demographics of the area, in which the hospital is located.