What matters most to your patients?

Are you committed to providing patient-centered care and measuring your outcomes?

I hope your answer is?YES, because I have a great resource for you. Before giving you the resource, let's first talk about what is patient or client-centered care and how this relates to interprofessional teams. Interprofessional teams would not exist without a patient. Specifically, the leader of an interprofessional health team is the patient.

Now let's get on the same page about how patient-centered care is defined. I have provided 3 definitions below and bolded common terms.

• The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services defines patient-centered care as "integrated health care services delivered in a setting and manner that is?responsive?to individuals and their goals,?values?and?preferences, in a system that supports good provider–patient communication and empowers individuals receiving care and providers to make effective care plans together."
• The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines patient-centered care as "Patient-centered: Providing care that is?respectful?of and?responsive?to individual patient?preferences, needs, and?values?and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions."
• The Institute of Medicine defines patient-centered care as "providing care that is?respectful?of and?responsive?to individual patient?preferences, needs, and?values?and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions."

If these definitions are reflective of your practice, then it's time to measure your success.

Glyn Elwyn has developed an evidence-based 3 question tool to measure shared-decision making which is inherent in patient-centered care. You can choose to use the version that includes a 5 point rating scale or a 10 point rating scale. The core 3 questions include:

• How much effort was made to help you understand your health issues?
• How much effort was made to listen to the things that matter most to you about your health issues?
• How much effort was made to include what matters most to you in choosing what to do next?

This is a perfect questionnaire to ask after your initial encounter/evaluation with the patient, and it should not take them long to complete.

October is patient-centered awareness month. Plan how your team would like to use this questionnaire as a quality improvement or assurance measure. After a month of collecting information, you can use the outcomes to promote your team's support of patient-centered care on social media, office posters, newsletters, etc.

Your team's delivery of patient-centered care matters to your patients!

I can't wait to see your great outcomes! Please tag me in your future posts so I can celebrate with you!

We are?BETTER TOGETHER!

For more information about collaboRATE, please visit https://www.glynelwyn.com/collaborate.html

#collaboration ?#patientexperience ?#healthcare ?#bettertogether

References:

1. IOM: https://nam.edu/patient-centered-integrated-health-care-quality-measures-could-improve-health-literacy-language-access-and-cultural-competence/
2. CMS: https://innovation.cms.gov/key-concept/person-centered-care
3. AHRQ: https://www.ahrq.gov/talkingquality/measures/six-domains.html