EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION TOWARD MAKING PERSON CENTEREDNESS MORE PERSON-CENTERED

Abstract

One of the aims of the International College of Person Centered Medicine has been the development of an operationalized measure that allows for assessment of the degree of person centeredness of health care services. With funding in part from the World Health Organization, the Person-centered Care Index (PCI) was developed and validated across three countries [1]. Representatives of patients and family organizations contributed to the development of this 33-item instrument to rate the person centeredness of a health care system, but the PCI is completed by physicians working in that system. If we seek to be truly person centered, shouldn’t we be asking the people using a health care system how they rate it, or at least how they rate the professionals they encounter within that system? This issue of the Journal presents two such studies, one from a primary care system in Brazil, the other from a specialty care setting in Canada.