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The patient should be the judge of patient centred care
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Key messages about patient centred care can be drawn
from the paper by Little et al in this issue of the BMJ
(p 468).1 Firstly, strong agreement exists between the
definition of patient centredness that arises empirically from this
observational study of patients in the United Kingdom and another
definition arising from reflections on practice in South Africa and
Canada,2 suggesting an international definition of patient
centred medicine. Secondly, the premise of the observational study is
correct
that the best way of measuring patient centredness is an
assessment made by the patients themselves.
Patient centredness is becoming a widely used, but poorly understood,
concept in medical practice. It may be most commonly understood for
what it is not
technology centred, doctor centred, hospital centred,
disease centred. Definitions of patient centred care seek to make the
implicit in patient care explicit. Such definitions are, we recognise,
oversimplifications which help in
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What can you learn from this BMJ paper? Read Leanne Tite's Paper+