Patients at Heart of Health Care Decision

It was another reminder that patients lie at the heart of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH), a theme considered so important that the one-day meeting devoted an entire segment to it.  The need to engage patients and their families in making decisions about their health care emerged as a unifying theme that tied together disparate parts of the most recent Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) conference in Chicago on Oct. 25.

"All of the things we are going to talk about today and all of the tools and resources are so very important, but if we don't really engage and partner with the patient and don't change that care experience with them, then it is all for naught," said Amy Gibson, chief operating officer of the PCPCC, when introducing the segment. Several health care professionals and a patient partner provided their own perspectives on the topic during the segment.

For example, Juanita Brooks, a patient partner at the Henry Ford Medical Center in Detroit, said it is important for physicians and other health care professionals to really understand the needs of the patient, and that means they need to understand what is going on with their patients at home.