Identify & promote strategies & tools to support patient centered care and it's impacts...

Strategies to Support Patient Centered Care

• Educate staff about cultural/health beliefs, practices and mores of specific ethical & cultural groups in patient population.
• Develop comprehensive planning focused on needs of cultural, as well as diagnostic, groups of patients.
• Develop nursing and clinical interview protocols that elicit patients' perceptions about their illness & their expectations of treatment.
• Develop explicit and culturally appropriate expectations & standards regarding staff behavior with patients (i.e. form of address, knocking on doors, rules of propriety.
• Educate staff to ask, not assume: to ask patients what they want to know, to suggest questions that patients might have, to ask patients if they understand, etc.
• Consider giving patients access to medical records, if they want it, and make sure knowledgeable staff are available to encourage questions and to discuss records with them.
• Reexamine institutional routines that force patients into passive compliance; wherever possible, let patients do and control as much as they can on their own.
• Educate staff to ask, not assume, how therapeutic decisions affect patients' lives and what patients' preferences would be among alternative treatments and outcomes.
• Educate clinical staff to negotiate therapeutic strategies with patients.

Tools to Support Patient Centered Care

• PATIENT EDUCATION. Institutions can implement patient education programs that are interactive with emphasis on emotional factors that hinder or promote healthy behaviors. Need addressed = patients want to feel more self reliant.
• PROGRAMS TO ACCESS INFORMATIONAL RESOURCES. Providers can enhance patient education/experience by making a broad variety of educational resources accessible to patients and their families (i.e. internet, library, medical records - my chart, etc.). Need addressed = patients want to have a better understanding of their care.
• PAIN MANAGEMENT. Programs that rate and chart pain during cycle of care. Staff education on pain management that includes alternatives to pain such as use of PCA's. Need addressed = patients rate pain control as important.
• PHYSICAL SPACE. Hospitals should do whatever is possible to improve lighting, color & space design so that patients are as comfortable as possible. Need addressed = patients want space personalized to give them more identity during care.
• EMOTIONAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS. Provider can implement relaxation programs, provide audio visual entertainment, implement protocol to encourage staff to review emotional concerns, facilitate access to patient support groups, etc. Need addressed = patients want to have their esteem bolstered (strong emotional support is documented as curative).
• FAMILY SUPPORT. Hospitals can have protocols/programs in place that allow families: (1) to get information easily; (2) participate in care if desired, (3) be involved in discharge process, (4) get emotional support for themselves if needed. Need addressed = family support is very important to patients and overall family caregivers spend more time with patients than other providers.
• CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION. Providers can implement programs to improve cross cultural communications (i.e. LEARN = Listen, Explain, Acknowledge, Recommend, Negotiate). Need addressed = patients expressed desire to improve communication.