Clinically Relevant vs Patient Centered
Posted on 14 January 2009
Not sure why I am thinking about this… and to some of you more advanced thinkers and practitioners this might even be a rather silly question.
But it struck me.
Which of the two phrases in the title should be the one we focus on as we move forward into pushing the healthcare conversation forward?
Clinically Relevant (Clinical Relevance)
or
Patient Centered
Does it make a difference? Would it change our behaviours? Will it affect our focus?
If we use one more than the other, will this affect our outcomes in transforming healthcare? (Oops, you are right, the goal is not to transform healthcare but to improve patient outcomes. In the process of improving outcomes it just happens that the delivery of health care services will also be transformed.)
I do believe it makes a difference… but need to think through it some more. Please let us know what you think.
1 Response to Clinically Relevant vs Patient Centered
Hello
Looks like your blog will be very interesting!
For an individual patient, clinically relevant and patient-centred should be one and the same. The patient should see, feel and understand that the aim is to get them as well as possible and keep them as well as possible….. and using their definition of well.
There is a tension between being patient-centred and taking a population approach to health. But…. when people talk ablout clinical decision making or clinically relevant they usually are referring to how an individual patient is managed rather than the decisions that need to be taken about managing services for populations.
Happy for others to disagree!