Concept · medicine
Patient-centered care
Follow Patient-centered care — see important new research and changes in evidence.Change log
What changed
Dated edits to this page's evidence: studies added or removed from a claim, claims added or withdrawn, and new explanations tagged here. Rewordings are not listed.
- Concept page published
Patient-centered care treats patients as partners whose preferences, information needs, and co-created plans shape clinical encounters—not only as targets of protocols.
“Nice bedside manner” is not the measured construct. Studies operationalize PCC via satisfaction, co-creation scales, communication training, and system frictions like EHR burden.
Evidence
What the evidence shows
Drawn from 3 studies in this library. Each finding starts with a plain-language takeaway, then the denser detail. Supports means evidence for a finding; Challenges means evidence against a stated position; Qualifies marks scope with a short note on each study’s contribution. Challenged positions are labeled — they are not findings.
Patient-centered and co-created care relate to satisfaction with care and providers.
Survey evidence links patient-centered care and co-creation of care with satisfaction with care and with the healthcare professional.
Communication skills training can improve health literacy–related medical outcomes.
Physician communication training improves health literacy and medical outcomes in the cited interventional evaluation.
- Do EHRs feed physician burnout?— EHR burnout is a system constraint on PCC delivery
Open questions
Tensions and limits
Some items are genuine disagreements on the same question. Others mark different assays, populations, or outcomes — limits on how far one study travels — not a forced fight between papers.
PCC/co-creation associated with satisfaction vs EHR use associated with physician burnout
- Does patient-centered care help people with many conditions feel better?
- Do EHRs feed physician burnout?
Study Role Design N Population Outcome Does patient-centered care help people with many conditions feel better? Supports Cross-sectionalSurvey of multi-morbidity patients in Dutch primary care; correlation/regression N=216 · 216 of 394 eligible (55% response) from eight practices Adults with multi-morbidity in Noord-Brabant primary care Associations of patient-centered and co-created care with well-being and satisfaction Do EHRs feed physician burnout? Supports Cross-sectionalSurvey of physicians/learners plus EHR back-end usage logs at a Canadian academic mental health hospital N=208 · 176 physicians + 32 learners; survey sent to 474 Physicians, residents, and fellows at a large Canadian academic mental health hospital Burnout symptoms and perceived EHR contribution; log vs self-report time discrepancies
Common misconceptions
Patient-centered care is only about being friendly.
It is measured through information sharing, preference elicitation, and co-created plans—not warmth alone.
Exam-style questions
Short-answer questions that ask you to explain or compare, not recall.
Name one outcome linked to PCC/co-creation in the satisfaction study.
Satisfaction with care and/or with the healthcare professional.
The studies
3 studies in this library bear on Patient-centered care, ordered by citations.
- Does patient-centered care help people with many conditions feel better?
Among 216 Dutch primary-care patients with multi-morbidity, patient-centered and co-created care tracked with better physical/social well-being and higher care satisfaction.
- Can teaching doctors to communicate better lower blood pressure?
In a Mashhad RCT of 240 uncontrolled hypertensive patients and 35 physicians, communication-skills training improved BP control, health literacy, adherence, and self-efficacy vs usual care.
- Do EHRs feed physician burnout?
Among 208 respondents, ~26% of physicians reported burnout symptoms and 74.5% of those with symptoms blamed the EHR; logs showed large overestimates vs self-reported EHR time.
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