Patient-focused care: what is it?

Abstract

Patient-focused care is a philosophy incorporating a set of basic principles with which hospitals and other health care institutions organize and facilitate administration and delivery of the caring continuum. The pattern advocates fundamental change in basic operations and structuring of care delivery and projects considerable cost savings based on that change in utilization and organization of resources, staff, capital equipment, and the physical plant. Increased customer and professional staff satisfaction and creation of a learning organization that is ready to move with the fast-paced change inherent in today's health care delivery system are examples of projected benefits from implementation of this model.