Angel McGarrity-Davis, RN, CDONA, NHA

I am a new nurse to long-term care. In orientation, the staff development coordinator talked about patient-centered care but did not elaborate much. Can you please give me the highlights?  

Over the past several years, the focus from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has turned to Value-Based Purchasing, which is required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The nurse needs to know that the focus is now on the ACTUAL patient. Patients’ plans of care must be centered on their holistic needs.     

 The National Quality Forum recently declared, “Person- and family-centered care emphasizes the inclusivity of recipients of healthcare services and their families and caregivers. 

“Person- and family-centered care is an approach to the planning and delivery of care across settings and time that is centered on collaborative partnerships among individuals, their defined family, and providers of care. It supports health and well-being by being consistent with, respectful of, and responsive to an individual’s priorities, goals, needs, and values.”

All of the providers within the continuum of care (hospitals, SNFs, etc.) are now mandated to have their customers answer survey questions about their care. This evaluation will be included in payment penalties and/or incentives in the future.    

In the face of these recent and ongoing efforts to swing the healthcare standard of care from one in which patients are submissive beneficiaries of healthcare to one in which they are empowered to contribute toward their own care, the existing providers of the healthcare system are waiting to see what happens.  

We will describe details of patient-centered care next month.