October marks Patient-Centered Care Awareness Month, shining a spotlight on the revolutionizing power of PCC in American healthcare. Today, implementing a patient-centered care model not only boosts patient satisfaction but also offers significant advantages to organizations that adopt it.
However, with challenges like a shortage of skilled professionals and no one-size-fits-all framework, how can organizations make patient-centered care a reality? Dive into seven essential steps to create a thriving patient-centered care model in your facility and unlock its full potential.
What Is A Patient-Centered Care Model?
Patient-centered care revolutionizes healthcare by treating the patient as a whole person, not just a set of symptoms. It integrates emotional, mental, and social factors into care, forging a strong partnership between patients, families, and providers. This approach ensures that every decision aligns with the patient’s unique values and aspirations, driving more effective and personalized care.
Benefits of a Patient-Centered Care Model
The practice of putting patients at the center of the entire healthcare process, embracing a patient-centered care model transforms facilities, delivering powerful benefits such as:
- More opportunities to expand reimbursement and revenue
- Better continuity of care
- A means to improve patient outcomes, satisfaction, and adherence to treatment
- The power to more efficiently and effectively manage patients with chronic conditions, the biggest cost in the U.S. healthcare system
For facilities looking for a standard to follow, the medical home model is the best-known and most widely used option. Known formally as the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) and offered officially by the CDC, several organizations provide some guidance on this model, including the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Roadblocks Toward Implementing Patient-Centered Care
The promise of patient-centered care (PCC) is undeniable, but making it a reality is no small feat. A 2021 study in the Journal of Education and Health Promotion reveals that while tailoring care to individual needs and preferences is crucial, the exact path to achieving this remains a challenge.
The PCMH’s Joint Principles and AHRQ resources are invaluable for shaping patient-centered care, offering robust guidance and tools. However, there’s no universal blueprint—each organization must craft a model that fits its unique needs.
What’s more, the healthcare sector is struggling with a severe shortage of qualified professionals, heightened by an aging population, rising demands, and burnout. These workforce challenges not only threaten care quality but also make it harder to effectively implement patient-centered care models.
How to Create an Effective Patient-Centered Care Model
How can today’s facilities craft a top-notch patient-centered care model? Whether done in-house or with expert guidance, focusing on a few key factors can transform your approach and elevate patient care:
1. Patient-Centered Care Models Start with the Patient
Ideally, each patient-centered care model should be customized to the precise needs of each individual patient. Realistically, this most often is used for population health management, a common use case of the PCMH.
Meeting this objective means diving deep into your operational information to analyze and understand key trends around patients and providers. It also means learning and respecting the care preferences, cultural traditions, and socioeconomic situation of the communities you treat.
A practical approach includes implementing patient satisfaction surveys, advisory councils, and focus groups. A 2017 NEJM Catalyst Brief explains, “using the resulting information to continuously improve the way health care facilities and provider practices are designed, managed, and maintained from both a physical and operational perspective so they become centered more on the individual person than on a checklist of services provided.”
2. Welcome the Family
Including family or other personal caregivers is another core component of patient-centered care. Especially for chronic care or other high-acuity patients who may be unable to function on their own, family members are sometimes the principal decision-makers.
3. Share Data and Decision-making
An emphasis on shared decision making is another essential piece to every successful patient-centered care model. This also includes sharing new information quickly with patients, families and caregivers, so that their decisions are as informed as possible — and to reduce the stress associated with keeping them in suspense.
“Providers can work with patients to overcome power hierarchies by making a concerted effort to elicit patient input,” writes Sara Heath at PatientEngagementHIT. “This is best done during shared decision-making, when a clinician can inform patients about various treatment options, their expected outcomes, and then ask that patient her input about the ultimate care decision.”
4. Share Responsibilities Among Clinicians
A patient-centered care model is also collaborative care, requiring informed participation from each healthcare professional involved. Thanks to advancements in EHR and telehealth technology, collaborative care is a more achievable goal than ever before. Virtual video makes communication quick and easy not just between doctors and patients, but among all clinicians.
According to the JEHP authors, successful care coordination also “increases the quality of health care and provides access to adequate patient information, improves patient empowerment, and reduces the rate of long hospital stays.”
5. Emphasize Freedom of Choice
Patient-centered care means giving patients the power to choose a preferred model of diagnosis and treatment, and giving families a voice in that decision, too. Although they don’t necessarily have veto power over every piece of the process, they should be given the time and information they need to understand the situation and come to a conclusion that they’re comfortable with.
6. Shore Up Your Workforce Capabilities
The success of your patient-centered care model also hinges on having the right staff in place. Skilled professionals, including nurses, clinicians, and support staff, are crucial for delivering precise, timely, and empathetic care. Their expertise bridges clinical protocols with personalized treatment, ensuring high-quality outcomes. Obstacles toward care delivery, however, can undermine these efforts, leading to inconsistent treatment and reduced patient satisfaction.
Pro-Tip: Partnering with a dedicated workforce solutions provider helps fill these gaps by ensuring optimal staffing levels and access to experienced professionals.
7. Align the Entire Organization
Lastly, because patient-centered care is such a transformational concept, success requires integrating it across the entire organization. Therefore, just getting leaders on board isn’t enough.
“Efforts to transform healthcare culture require robust, multi-pronged efforts at all levels of the organization; leadership is only the beginning,“ write the authors of a research article published by BMC Health Services Research.
This challenge might be the toughest for many facilities. It often requires rethinking internal communication, redefining key performance indicators (KPIs), and adapting leadership styles. Yet, securing buy-in from all team members, including nurses and clinicians, is crucial to the success of your patient-centered care model.
Powering Your Patient-Centered Care Model
Embracing a patient-centered care model offers organizations a powerful edge, ensuring patients remain at the heart of healthcare. At CareerStaff, we provide premier staffing and managed services that empower you to excel in this approach. Our expert solutions connect you with the right clinical talent, enabling you to deliver exceptional care and meet patient needs with excellence.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your organization or submit a staffing request now.