Patient-Centred Health Care : Achieving Co-ordination, Communication and Innovation

There are four core themes developed in Patient-Centred Health Care which deal with critical issues, models, theories and frameworks (both theoretical and empirical) that expound understandings of patient centred care and the processes, practices and behaviours supporting its attainment:

1. Conceptions and cultures of patient-centred care

2. Coordinating for care

3. Communicating for care

4. Innovations in patient centred care and the patient experience

Section 1 of this book sets out the origins of the approach of patient centredness, allowing the reader to recognise what this means and looks like, institutionally and educationally, as well as recognising the implications of its absence. Section 2 concentrates on the process of team working itself which may be patient centred but is also involved with co-operation and co-ordination across professional and organisational boundaries. Section 3 focuses on communication within, between and across patients and teams, and Section 4 highlights the innovations in patient centred care that will enable further progress in the field. In each section,the editors illuminate key issues through a case-study of a relevant intervention to support patient-centred care.