Healthcare IT & Transformation

What is Patient-centric Care?

What does patient-centric care even mean? To the patient? To the facility? To the care team?

You might wonder why a healthcare system needs to be reminded to center its efforts on the patient. It seems clear from a patient perspective. In fact, healthcare seems to be the industry with the most compelling reasons to embrace a strong customer [patient] service focus, but unfortunately as the system has grown more complex and fragmented; and as providers feel the pressure to see more patients in less time, care has become centered around the needs of the system at the expense of the patient.

This must change!

Care that is truly patient-centric considers patients’:

• cultural traditions
• personal preferences and values
• family situations
• lifestyles

Patient-centric care includes the patient and their loved ones as an integral part of the care team. Together with health care professionals they collaborate to make clinical decisions. Patient-centric care enables patients to take on the responsibility for important aspects of their self-care and monitoring. Patient-centric care ensures that the flow between providers, departments, and health care settings are respectful, coordinated, and efficient. Information follows this flow seamlessly. When care is centered around the patient, opportunity exists to remove unneeded and unwanted services.

There are multiple layers of this discussion so we’ll address them one layer at a time in a series on achieving patient-centricity. For discussion purposes, here are our layers:

1. Patient-centric care for one complaint/one visit
2. Patient-centric care for all visits related to one complaint at one facility
3. Patient-centric care for all visits related to one complaint
4. Patient-centric care for all all visits at one facility
5. Patient-centric care for all visits within one health system
6. Patient-centric care for all visits in one region
7. Patient-centric care for all visits in one area (state/province or multiple states/provinces)
8. Patient-centric care for all visits in one nation
9. Patient-centric care for all visits
10. Family-centric care for all visits

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