[Patient-centred care requires attention to context]

Abstract

Quality of care is often measured as the level to which guidelines are followed. The level to which care providers take into account the context of the patient, such as patient transportation needs, caretaker responsibilities or patient inability to take medication frequently because of a stressful job, is seldom used as a measure of quality of care. Recent evidence has shown that care providers pay limited attention to patient context when suggesting a plan of care. We discuss ways for care providers to take more account of the context of the patient, which will increase the quality of care. We suggest the development of context-related indicators to measure quality of care.