You might have heard of person-centered care, and if you want to know how many values are there that support person-centered care, then you are on the right page.
It is one of the important practices that healthcare professionals are developing in them these days. In short, as it sounds, they will inform you about everything, such as treatment, decisions, or anything else.
Likewise, his or her views, individual rights, and needs are acknowledged. It stresses dignity, respect, individuality, privacy, equality, diversity, and choice. This improves personal, professional, and organizational relations.
Person-centered care core values will help the patient in the healing process. This is beneficial to both patients and the workforce.
1. How Many Values Are There That Support Person Centered Care?
Four principles or values have to be followed effectively. The principles become important as the goals and values move around a patient’s well-being and health.
1.1. Treat People with Dignity, Compassion, and Respect
Every time a person enters into healthcare or his treatment, it gives them a sense of losing dignity and preferences. As nothing seems in their control, they feel less cared for or do not feel compassionate.
For this reason, healthcare professionals should consider their views, circumstances, and situations to make them feel at ease and validated.
Taking care of them, being polite, showing empathy, informing the treatment, and making informed decisions will instill compassion and respect among doctors, healthcare staff, and patients.
Treating everyone equally and with respect is a universal desire. Therefore, while treating patients, you have to be polite and respect their decisions, moral beliefs, and suggestions.
1.2. Offer Coordinated Care, Support, and Treatment
Not only one individual but all healthcare staff members should show care, support, and treatment towards the patient.
Embracing the practice of person-centered values is essential for ensuring the consistent fulfilment of the person’s needs. People who work in healthcare or that organization should communicate with each other to learn about the patient and his needs.
If you do not have coordination with your colleagues in the system, the person’s care and needs may not be met.
To avoid this, the whole department should understand person-centered care and offer the patient coordinated care, support, and treatment.
This will improve positivity in the patient, and they will not feel depressed. It’s also crucial to ensure that patients do not perceive a lack of care or interest in themselves or their illness.
1.3. Offer Personalized Care, Support, and Treatment
Offering personalized care, support, and treatment is one of the important principles of this scheme. As the name suggests, you must show and give personalized treatment to the patients. Everyone will have varying attitudes, views, situations, and lives.
As such, not all individuals can be treated the same way. What works for one person may not work for another. That is why you need to ensure that all individuals are not treated the same way.
You should learn to understand their physical and emotional strengths to give them the best treatment and quality of life. When you personalize your treatment, it will make the patient feel independent and satisfy their needs.
Therefore, a standard procedure cannot be applied to every patient, and you should offer personalized care, support, and treatment accordingly.
1.4. Encourage to Live an Independent and Fulfilling Life
You have to encourage patients to Live an independent and fulfilling life. You can do this by involving patients in the decision-making process and by letting them address their issues.
With this, you will help them teach qualities like independence and understanding how to care for themselves. You shouldn’t make them feel overwhelmed and know how much involvement you can show towards them with better social care.
This will also help you as, in the meantime, you can look after people with more dependency. Well, you have to learn how to maintain balance and ensure you do not make them feel you don’t care or are neglecting the patient.
Therefore, dignity, compassion, respect, coordinated and personalized care, support, and treatment will help patients feel independent and lead fulfilling lives.
Now that we recognize these as values supporting person-centered care practice, we will examine an example of it in the next section to gain a deeper understanding.
2. What is Person Centred Care?
In simple terms, person-centered care is a practice followed by the workforce and community. In this practice, the needs of patients or individual rights are met by developing behavioral skills.
This practice enables patients to engage in their treatment, acquire knowledge about it, offer suggestions, and actively participate in it to achieve the best results.
It is opposed to the traditional approach of offering medical advice and also takes into account the patient’s overall situation, perspectives, and decisions.
Sometimes, healthcare providers include relatives alongside patients to enhance the decision-making process. It is to make sure that it helps in monitoring patients, whether in the short term or long term.
3. Why is Person-Centred Care Important?
Values that support person-centered care are necessary for the following reasons.
- When the patient shares all the things and health-related decisions, he or she will feel confident about the treatment given to him. This will create fewer doubts about the professionals. The endearing staff and health decisions will also instill confidence and assurance in the patient.
- This will also develop mutual respect between patients and doctors.
- Also, since doctors will be able to understand the mental and emotional state of patients, they can come to a solution ensuring quality of life.
- This will inculcate a sense of understanding of how healthcare professionals work and how patients can make informed decisions. It will develop knowledge and skills in patients.
- Another benefit of it is that it will reduce pressure on healthcare a little.
- Some patients can be hesitant to discuss their needs and may have their own choices, like patients suffering from dementia, learning disabilities, etc. Acknowledging their needs and necessities will mean a lot to them.
- Also, people will be aware of how to care for themselves and actively look after themselves. Moreover, person-centred values will also ensure the patient’s safety, self-worth, and emotional support.
3.1 A Few More Reasons –
- It will give patients trust and confidence, ensuring they follow the procedure or treatment without hesitation.
- This will increase patients’ optimism and build a good impression of health professionals and the system. Care and support will help you enter their personal space and help them.
- This practice will develop and promote independence in people or patience by making informed decisions.
- Patients will also adopt more positivity, specifically those who are struggling with long-term diseases. They will feel understanding and effective.
- If you are a patient, know that understanding about your treatments will help you make correct and informed decisions. This will empower individuals.
4. Who Uses Person-Centered Care?
At present, 23 European countries actively practice these values. The countries include the United Kingdom, Sweden, Netherlands, and a few more.
The sector focused on people with disabilities initially to develop its values. It was to learn their feelings, moral beliefs, and quality of life across various perspectives.
Nonetheless, one cannot overlook the numerous advantages of embracing a person-centered approach, which has applicability across nearly every sector or organization.
This finds application in various sectors, including schools, universities, old age homes, educational institutes, facilities, aged care services, and notably, in mental healthcare and the criminal justice systems.
This approach is helpful in various health issues. People deal with mental stress, panic attacks, anxiety, trouble in relationships, several phobias, and many more.
Its values give the patient or person more confidence in the therapy and treatment. This will, in turn, make him follow the regime and treatment properly.
The core values apply the same to all the sectors following person-centered care. Only the methods or paths chosen will be different depending on the context.
5. What is An Example of Person-Centered Care?
A simple example of person-centered care is mentioned below
John is a patient at a hospital who had brain surgery because of an accident. The medical team advised him to stay in the hospital for one week to ensure effective monitoring of his health.
John is kind, active, and home-loving; thus, he does not want to watch the room’s ceilings. The carer or nurse assigned to John possessed an awareness of Person-Centered Care values.
Thus, she responsibly communicated with John about his preferences and perspectives on staying in the hospital for a week.
Every day, John watched his favorite TV shows with his wife in the evening. The nurse let his wife stay with John in the evening hours at his request.
Moreover, John also likes to listen to audiobooks and songs. For this, the nurse allowed the wife to lend him the iPad during the day. John received the opportunity to watch TV for some time during the day, and his wife assisted him with baths and dressings.
John’s needs being acknowledged in healthcare gave him confidence and positivity. His dignity was maintained, and he was respected, which made him think about the treatment and take care of himself.
Therefore, if any patient has any health issue, the carer or healthcare professionals should learn about his emotional and mental situation along with the physical to take care of him. This will lead to a fulfilling and quality life for patients.
Healthcare systems can benefit from real-life examples
- If patients feel comfortable at home for the treatment, staff can make that happen if possible.
- You can change the patients sleeping time or bedtime according to their needs and preferences.
- Asking patients what food they prefer for their meals, ensuring that food does not ruin their health.
- Letting the patients near and dear to visit him in shifts and rounds. Asking him or her whom they would prefer to have around would be helpful.
- Giving them easy-to-use tools that help in daily activities like moving, holding things, etc.
Conclusion
These are some ways the workforce can help patients feel comfortable, ensure privacy, and trust them and the treatment given. Furthermore, These values hold importance because of their numerous benefits.
It is useful in other sectors, too, as it has many benefits. For instance, in school or college, learning what the person wants, views, and circumstances can help make better decisions.
Also, it is crucial to make people feel dignified, respected, and cared for, especially when they are ill or are going through trauma.
Last Updated on January 10, 2024 by Apeksha Soni