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Op-Ed
It’s not about you
Patient-centred care is currently dominating many discussions in the health care community and promises to continue to be a hot topic of conversation moving forward. It was certainly the theme for many health care conferences I’ve attended this past year.
April 8, 2016 By Mari-Len De
This clinical method of putting patients at the centre of health care delivery is not new. In fact since the early 2000s, many health-related publications have covered this topic. In its 2001 publication titled, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, the U.S. Institute of Medicine defined patient-centred 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.”
Patient-centred care may not be a novel concept, but it surely has not been fully exploited after all these years. The increasing demand for a better, more efficient health-care system is pushing the envelope in patient care and, as a consequence, driving health-care professionals toward collaboration.
Adopting a patient-centred approach does not only require health-care practitioners to respect and respond to the patients’ “preferences, needs and values.” It should also compel practitioners to go beyond the four walls of the clinic – acknowledging their own abilities and limitations – and work with other health experts to deliver the best possible clinical care for the patient.
Patient-centred care and interprofessional collaboration – the latter is almost a necessary consequence of the former. A practice cannot claim to be patient-centred without genuine intent and willingness to work not just within the same profession but with other health professionals as well.
Our upcoming Business Forum, to be held on June 5th in Mississauga, Ont. , aims to create a venue for practitioners to further pursue this conversation. This year’s forum theme, “Patient-centred care through interprofessional collaboration,” as well as our line-up of education sessions and speakers, promise to provide RMTs the knowledge and tools to help elevate their practices to a level that is responsive to current health care trends.
I hope to see you all at the 2016 Massage Therapy Canada Business Forum!
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