As the United States debates how to reorganize its health care system, policy makers must ask what patients really want and need from their primary care providers. There is often a disconnect between what patients say they want and what other providers or payers think patients want. Our research at the National Partnership for Women and Families suggests that a truly patient-centered health car...

Health services internationally struggle to ensure health care is "person-centered" (or similar). In part, this is because there are many interpretations of "person-centered care" (and near synonyms), some of which seem unrealistic for some patients or situations and obscure the intrinsic value of patients' experiences of health care delivery. The general concern behind calls for person-centere...

Family-Centered Care (FCC) is a way to provide health care that recognizes the importance of family for a hospitalized child. According to it, it is essential to involve families in their children’s recovery plan [1]. FCC was born in the Fifties of 20th century as a reaction to the leading idea in Pediatric care that emphasized physical care, technical abilities and emotional detachment and con...

SEVERALRECENT REPORTS describe the important role medical homes play in ensuring favorable outcomes for children. Central to the success of a medical home is the practice of family-centered care (FCC). The purpose of this commentary is to describe the evolution of FCC, provide an updated definition of FCC, and discuss implications for practice, programs, and policy. The development of the FCC d...

Tresolini CP and the Pew-Fetzer Task Force. Health professions education and relationship-centered Care. San Francisco, CA: Pew Health Professions Commission, 1994. The original presentation of the term “Relationship-centered care,” which was intended to convey “the importance of interaction among people as the foundation of any therapeutic or healing activity.” Available from the Pew Health Pr...