Patient-centered care is a way of thinking and doing things that see the people using health and social services as equal partners in planning, developing and monitoring care to make sure it meets their needs. It involves knowledge of the individual as the whole person, involving them – and where appropriate their family and friends – in helping to assess their own needs and plan their care.
Patient-centered care has now made it to center stage in discussions of quality. Insurance payments are increasingly linked to the provision of patient-centered care. Los in many of the talks of patient-centered care, however, is the essential and revolutionary meaning of what it means to be patient-centered. The originators of client-centered and patient-centered health care were well aware of the moral implications of their work, which was based on deep respect for patients as unique living beings, and the obligation to care for them on their terms.
There have been concerns that patient-centered care, with its focus on individual needs, might be at odds with an evidence-based approach, which tends to focus on populations. Fortunately, that debate has been laid to rest; proponents of evidence-based medicine now accept that a good outcome must be defined regarding what is meaningful and valuable to the individual patient. Patient-centered care, as does evidence-based medicine, considers both the art and the science.
What has been lacking, since hospital doesn’t make margin by teaching but by only caring the patient in the hospital itself, is to have a plan and a strategy to teach the patient to take care of themselves as much as possible. In the social system countries, the patient doesn’t go to the emergency room unless it is necessary, they have a physician on call to call instead. They try to modified diet, smoking habits, etc. to be more healthy. The lack of ownership of their health is instead the trademark of US healthcare.
This book advocates that more critical to a true patient-centered system we need to work the basics as well by training the new patients into a better and healthy lifestyle. Educating them to be more self-conscious and offering them the tools to better understand what they need to do to achieve better health and give them protocols and policies to sustain a better life. Prevention has always been the pinnacle of any medical care and should be brought back as a method on which build the new health care for the next century.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. SECTION 1: PATIENT FIRST. CHAPTER 1 PATIENT-CENTERED CARE. CHAPTER 2 KEY TO ACCESS HEALTH CARE. CHAPTER 3 ADDRESS PATIENTS QUESTIONS AND NEEDS. CHAPTER 4 SHARING VISION OF CARE. CHAPTER 5 MEETING PATIENTS EXPECTATIONS AND SATISFACTIONS. CHAPTER 6 FEAR AND ANXIETY RELIEF: FAMILY CARE. CHAPTER 7 ENGAGING PATIENTS. SECTION 2: TEAM APPROACH. CHAPTER 8 BUILDING TEAM APPROACH AND COMMUNICATIONS. CHAPTER 9 COMMON GROUND WITH THE PATIENTS. CHAPTER 10 CONFUSION OVER CARE. CHAPTER 11 COORDINATE PATIENTS PARTECIPATION. CHAPTER 12 SCHEDULING. CHAPTER 13 DO PATIENTS WANT TO PARTECIPATE? SECTION 3: THE TRUE NORTH. CHAPTER 14 TRANSPARENCY AND HONESTY. CHAPTER 15 THE TRUE NORTH ALIGNEMENT. CHAPTER 16 QUALITY VALUES. CHAPTER 17 OPTIMIZED HEALTH CARE SERVICES. CHAPTER 18 HEALING RELATIONSHIPS. CHAPTER 19 INFORMATION POWER. CHAPTER 20 THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY AND TELEMEDICINE.. SECTION 4: LONG TERM AND CHRONIC CARE. CHAPTER 21 CONTINUITY OF PATIENTS CARE AND ADVANCE DIRECTIVES. CHAPTER 22 INVOLVEMENT OF FAMILY MEMBERS AND CAREGIVERS. CHAPTER 23 LONG TERM FACILITIES. CHAPTER 24 COMFORT LEVEL. CHAPTER 25 CHRONIC CONDITIONS AND PAIN MANAGEMENT. CHAPTER 26 DIGNITY IN DEMENTIA. SECTION 5: BUILDING QUALITY SYSTEMS. CHAPTER 27 PATIENTS FLOW AND PRESS GAINEY SCORE. CHAPTER 28 CLINICAL STAFF AND BETTER PATIENTS EXPERIENCE. CHAPTER 29 FALL PREVENTION: ENGAGING THE FAMILY. CHAPTER 30 HAND HYGIENE. CHAPTER 31 TIME OUT FOR BETTER QUALITY. CHAPTER 32 SET UP STRATEGIES. SECTION 6: HEALTH CARE CHANGE OF THINKING. CHAPTER 33 THE CHANGE OF THINKING. CHAPTER 34 PHYSICAL WELLNESS. CHAPTER 35 CIRCLE OF HEALTH. CHAPTER 36 DIFFICULT PATIENTS. CHAPTER 37 PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT, DEPRESSION, SUICIDE. CHAPTER 38 RESPECT PATIENT CHOICES AND AUTONOMY.
Eldo E. Frezza, MD, MBA, FACS has been a board-certified physician for more than 20 years with 8 years of experience in health administration. He has a strong ability to improve financial, supply chain, quality and patient safety operations. He is a visible, hands-on leader with advisory expertise. He has a progressive understanding of flow and throughput with a reputation for establishing improvements and has a knowledge of utilization management.
He has served as Chief of Service and Chief of Surgery where he provided leadership and direction to successful transition from operating loss, to financial profit while drastically improving emergency and OR throughput. He also served as Director of Surgical Services for a private hospital where he assessed operations and established new metrics for OR; developed and implemented revised supply chain procedures for the OR to improve efficiency and achieve significant cost savings.
He has published books in Business and Ethics in healthcare including, The Business of Surgery, published by Cine-Med, copyright 2007; Professionalism & Ethics in a Surgical Practice published by Cine-Med, copyright 2008; and numerous articles. He received his medical degree Cum Laude from the University of Padua School of Medicine, Italy and his MBA in Health Organization management from Texas Tech Rawls School of Business, Lubbock, TX.
