Improving the patient experience through a comprehensive performance framework to evaluate excellence in person-centred care

BACKGROUND: Person-centred care (PCC) is now recognised as an important component of healthcare quality. However, a lack of consensus of its most critical elements and absence of a global measure of person-centredness has limited the ability to evaluate the impact of implementation. AIM: Introduce a measurable construct for PCC that yields improvement in quality, patient loyalty and staff engagement. METHODS: Informed by scientific evidence and the voices of patients, families and healthcare professionals, the Person-Centered Care Certification Programme was developed as a comprehensive measure of PCC (Person-Centered Care Certification is a registered trademark of Planetree Registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office). Ten years after its development, the programme was redesigned to offer a more complete evaluative framework to focus organisations’ PCC efforts and better understand their impact. Drawing on the National Academy of Medicine’s Guiding Framework for Patient and Family Engaged Care, five drivers for excellence were identified that delineate the critical inputs required to create and maintain a culture of PCC. Aligned within the drivers are 26 interventions that connect staff to purpose, promote partnership with patients and families, engage individuals in care and promote continuous learning. A multimethod evaluation approach assesses how effectively these PCC strategies have been executed within the organisation and to understand their impact on the human experience of care. RESULTS: The Person-Centered Care Certification Programme is associated with improvements in patient experience, patient loyalty and staff engagement. CONCLUSION: The structured Certification framework can help organisations identify PCC improvement opportunities, guide their implementation efforts, and better understand the impact on patient and staff outcomes. Tested in cultures around the world and across the care continuum, the framework has proven effective in converting PCC into a definable, measurable and attainable goal. This paper outlines how the programme was designed, the measurable benefits derived by organisations and lessons learnt through the process.