Personal perspectives on patient-centred care

Media Release
22 September 2012

Personal perspectives on patient-centred care at the Conference for General Practice

Keynote speakers gave very different perspectives on the common theme of achieving the Triple Aim of considering population health, the experience of care, and cost at the Conference for General Practice this morning.

Maureen Bisgnano, Chair of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) focused on asking patients ‘What matters to you?’ rather than ‘What’s the matter?’ to get to the heart of how to manage their health. She gave many inspiring examples of patients’ individual and unexpected needs, ranging from a paralysed man who most needed spare tyres for his wheelchair to help him work to an elderly lady who most needed a dog to help her recover from the depression of losing her husband.

She also spoke of the increase in chronic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity, that need solutions developed through patients’ eyes and partnering with them to achieve the best health outcomes.

Changes are needed at patient, organisation and community levels, she said, with a focus on goal-setting for patients based on their individual needs. It is the doctor’s role to help them express and fulfil those needs.

Prof Don Berwick, IHI’s founder, then spoke passionately about his father who began his medical career before the world wars and the invention of penicillin and how he would see the world of general practice now. It would be much changed from the GP-centred and controlled experience of
traditional family medicine to a much more integrated, teamwork-focused approach based on finding the answers rather than knowing them.

Despite Prof Berwick’s suspicion that his father would doubt himself and find his professionalism under attack in the world of modern health care, he would encourage him to look at the positives of change. “Rescue lies in the reinvention of professionalism”, he says, “to becoming stewards of health care resources.”

The Triple Aim summarises what society needs from health care, says Prof Berwick. “The challenge for new professionals is to embrace their citizenship of the whole health care system and ask ‘What am I part of?’ not ‘What do I do?’”

A clip from Maureen Bisognano’s speech and Dr Beverley Johnson’s example-rich presentation on patient- and family-centred care are on the College’s YouTube page at www.youtube.com/user/RNZCGP
ENDS

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