Patient Centered Care Meaning & Benefits & Examples

Patient-Centered Care Meaning & Benefits & Examples

In patient-centered care, a person’s special health necessities and preferred health outcomes are the driving power behind all health care decisions and quality proportions. Patients can engage with their health care providers, and providers treat patients not only from a clinical perspective, but also from an emotional, mental, spiritual, social, and financial perspective.

What is the Meaning of Patient-Centered Care?

Patient and family-centered care is the base for collaboration and mutual-decision-making between patients, households, and providers to create and manage a tailored and comprehensive care plan.

Most descriptions of patient-centered care have several common factors that influence the way health systems and facilities are developed and managed, and the way care is delivered:

• The health care system’s assignment, concept, values, leadership, and quality-improvement drivers are aligned to patient-centered goals.
• Care is collaborative, coordinated, and affordable. Quality care is provided at the right time and in the right place.
• Care focuses on physical comfort as well as emotional well-being.
• Patient and family preferences, values, cultural traditions, and socioeconomic conditions are respected.
• Patients and their families are an expected part of the care team and play a role in decisions at the patient and system level.
• The presence of family components in the care setting is enabled and facilitated.
• Information is shared completely and in a timely method so that patients and their family members can make knowledgeable decisions.

Benefits of Patient-Centered Care:

The benefits of patient-centered care, such as better outcomes and higher rates of patient engagement and satisfaction, allow both the caregiver and the patient’s goals to be accomplished. The prior goal and advantage of patient-centered care are to enhance individual health outcomes, not just population health outcomes, although population outcomes may also improve. Not only do patients benefit, but providers and health care systems benefit as well, through:

• Improved outcomes

Many studies have revealed that when patient preferences are prioritized, they engage more in treatments, leading to better health results and faster recovery. Hospitals and practices that execute patient-centered care report:

1. Lower ER visit rates.
2. Faster and more successful recovery.
3. Decreased utilization of healthcare resources.
4. Increased patient, family, and care team satisfaction with the service.
5. Improved health outcomes.

• Improved patient satisfaction

Patient satisfaction is connected with how excellently a healthcare service aligns with a patient’s expectation of care. Patient-centered care promotes increased patient satisfaction rates by considering their personal health goals and desires and implicating them in their own treatment journey.

With shared decision-making, a patient’s active participation guides the care plan and gives clinicians a very clear idea of how to outmatch their expectations. This, in turn, significantly enhances patient satisfaction rates.

• Improved reputation for your healthcare organization

Online reviews and social media is essential for helping patients discover your healthcare organization and its reputation. Healthcare experts will stop reviewing patients as individuals seeking medical attention or looking to treat one condition—patients are healthcare customers predicting the amazing benefits of genuinely patient-centered care.

With patient-centered care standards, shared decision-making between the patient and their care team assures that the patient senses they are being taken care of perfectly and that all safety protection has been applied.

• Better job satisfaction for staff

One of the essential benefits of patient-centered care is higher staff confidence and job satisfaction for care providers. Most healthcare specialists go into the domain because they are sincerely passionate about helping people. When clinicians feel like they work at a healthcare organization that focuses on patient-specific needs, they are more likely to feel satisfied with their job and less likely to experience burnout.

Examples of Patient-Centered Care:

1.   Patient-centered care in the doctor’s office

 Under patient-centered care, care focuses more on the patient’s problem than on diagnosis. Patients tend to build a trusted relationship with their doctors in patient-focused care models. Compassion, deep communication, and eye contact are crucial, as is the capacity of the doctor to see further than a patient’s symptoms and diagnosis. This comprehensive look at the patient's needs requires providers to deliver services such as peer support programs, social workers, financial advisors, mental and emotional health providers, and, transportation and daily living assistance.

2.   Patient-centered care in the hospital

Inflexible visiting hours and visitor limitations are a thing of the past in a patient-centered care model. Patients can get the authority to identify who can visit and when. Family members (as represented by the patient and not limited to blood relations) can visit during rounding and shift changes so they can be part of the care team, participating in discussions and care decisions. When not in the room with the patient, they are kept informed of their loved one’s progress through direct and timely updates.

3.   Personalized Medicine

The concept of patient-centered care extends to the treatments and therapies clinicians provide. Not only are care plans customized, but medications are often customized as well. A patient’s individual genetics, metabolism, biomarkers, immune system, and other “signatures” are harnessed in many disease states — especially cancer — to create personalized medications and therapies, as well as companion diagnostics that help clinicians better predict the best drug for each patient.

Patients with multi-morbidity have special care needs that often make healthcare delivery complex and costly to operate. Present healthcare delivery is not tailored to the needs of patients with multi-morbidity, although multi-morbidity poses a heavy burden on patients and is related to unfavorable outcomes. Patient-centered care is needed to improve outcomes across the entire healthcare system.

NANO Health’s Approach to Patient-Centered Care

Our approach to a Digital Health Ecosystem focuses on practicing patient-centric methods to improve medical care, increase engagement, and manage data efficiently. We have developed various healthcare management systems that improve medical decisions and keep the patients satisfied.