Patient-and family-centredness: growing a sustainable culture

Abstract

Elements of a sustainable culture that nourishes patient- and family-centredness (PFC) in healthcare are elegantly simple, but achieving PFC poses profound challenges for healthcare systems and policy. Healthcare organizations and policy makers often identify tactics and tools that they believe enhance PFC, but they fail to involve the very people who use healthcare services: patients, their families and community members. A way of viewing the journey to a sustainable PFC culture is by examining those elements of leadership, partnership and infrastructure that are necessary for its achievement.