Patient-Centred Care: Improving Quality and Safety by Focusing Care on Patients and Consumers

Abstract

Patient-centred care is health care that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of patients and consumers. The widely accepted dimensions of patient-centred care are respect, emotional support, physical comfort, information and communication, continuity and transition, care coordination, involvement of family and carers, and access to care. Surveys measuring patients' experience of health care are typically based on these domains. Research demonstrates that patient-centred care improves patient care experience and creates public value for services. When healthcare administrators, providers, patients and families work in partnership, the quality and safety of health care rise, costs decrease, and provider satisfaction increases and patient care experience improves. Patient-centred care can also positively affect business metrics such as finances, quality, safety, satisfaction and market share. Patient-centred care is recognised as a dimension of high-quality health care in its own right and is identified in the seminal Institute of Medicine report, 'Crossing the Quality Chasm', as one of the six quality aims for improving care. In recent years, strategies used in the US and UK to improve overall healthcare quality, such as public reporting and financial incentives, have emerged as policy-level drivers for improving patient-centred care. In Australia, a patient-centred approach is supported by the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights, the National Safety and Quality Framework, other national service standards, reports of state-based inquiries, and a range of jurisdictional and private sector initiatives. Recent national health reform arrangements (such as the Performance and Accountability Framework of the 2010 National Health and Hospitals Network Agreement) provide further incentives to improve patient-centred care by linking it to performance and funding. Another driver for improving patient-centred care is the establishment of a National Performance Authority to report transparently on a range of performance indicators, including 'patient satisfaction' for every Local Hospital Network, public hospital, private hospital and primary healthcare organisation. Against this background, Australian healthcare organisations are becoming increasingly interested in patient-centred care.