Nurses in Action: A Response to Cultural Care Challenges in a Pediatric Acute Care Setting 123

• We formed an academic–practice partnership to research culture care challenges.
• Participants: 6 Hispanic – 6 underserved Caucasian families – 12 healthcare providers.
• Care themes: family, faith, communication, care integration, meeting basic needs.
• Outlined specific recommendations for culturally congruent pediatric nursing care.
• Discussed implications for healthcare organization equitable care delivery.

Culturally congruent care is satisfying, meaningful, fits with people's daily lives, and promotes their health and wellbeing. A group of staff nurses identified specific clinical challenges they faced in providing such care for Hispanic and underserved Caucasian children and families in the pediatric medical–surgical unit of an urban regional children's hospital in the southeastern U.S. To address these challenges, an academic–practice partnership was formed between a group of nurse managers and staff nurses at the children's hospital and nursing faculty and graduate students at a local, research-intensive public university. Using the culture care theory, the partners collaborated on a research study to discover knowledge that would help the nursing staff resolve the identified clinical challenges. Twelve families and 12 healthcare providers participated. Data analysis revealed five care factors that participants identified as most valuable: family, faith, communication, care integration, and meeting basic needs. These themes were used to formulate nursing actions that, when applied in daily practice, could facilitate the provision of culturally congruent care for these children and their families. The knowledge generated by this study also has implications for healthcare organizations, nursing educators, and academic–practice partnerships that seek to ensure the delivery of equitable care for all patients.