In this issue, six articles have been brought together to share some unique insights into the challenges and impact of putting patient- and family-centered care into everyday practice. Key topics discussed include defining patient- and family-centered care (or person-centered care); describing essential components of patient-centered care; and developing strategies to educate clinicians regarding effective, patient-centered care.
McCance and colleagues emphasize the complexity and multidimensionality of the concept of ‘patient-centered’ in their article, “An Exploration of Person-Centeredness in Practice,” and bring this concept into the context of nursing practice. The authors describe the concept of person-centeredness and propose a person-centered nursing framework that emphasizes nursing competencies and a person-centered-care process that both engages the patient and yields person-centered outcomes. They then describe how the framework has been used in two different countries.
Deborah Small and Robert Small describe both the process and the tools they have very systematically developed to implement a new patient- and family-centered care model throughout a large, complex healthcare system. In “Patients First! Engaging the Hearts and Minds of Nurses with a Patient-Centered Practice Model” they explain how they have engaged clinicians throughout the system and are guiding them as they implement this new patient- and family-centered nursing practice model