How patient centered is patient centered care?

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Despite recent well-known advancements in patient care in the medical fields, such as patient-centeredness and evidence-based medicine and practice, there is rather less known about their effects on the particulars of clinician-patient encounters. The emphasis in clinical encounters remains mostly on treatment and diagnosis and less on communicative competency or engagement for medical professionals. The concept of patient-centeredness was introduced by Balint (1957) over 5 decades ago and has been studied in health research for the past few decades. Patient-centeredness gained its popularity in healthcare in the late 90s (Bechtel & Ness, 2010). However, despite being the most frequently discussed topic in medical practice (Bechtel & Ness, 2010; Boyle, Dwinnell, & Platt, 2005), it may not be entirely responsive to patients’ needs as its development has been mainly physician-driven with limited patient input (Bechtel & Ness, 2010).