- Date
- 07 July 2007
- Author
- Angela Coulter, chief executive, Jo Ellins, project manager
Picker Institute Europe - Reference
- BMJ.com
- Visit website
Policymakers increasingly believe that encouraging patients to play a more active role in their health care could improve quality, efficiency, and health outcomes. But critics have dismissed talk about patient engagement and patient centred care as political correctness—a misplaced concern with the "touchy feely" aspects of health care, with no scientific basis and little relevance to the quest for excellence in clinical care. Who is right? To what extent is the planned shift towards greater patient engagement supported by robust research evidence?
Patient focused quality interventions recognise and try to support patients in actively securing appropriate, effective, safe, and responsive health care. Initiatives may aim to engage patients in their own or their family's individual clinical care, or they may try to involve the public in improving the responsiveness of health services. This article focuses on the first of these two initiatives.
As part of a wider research initiative to collate and synthesise research on performance, quality, and cost effectiveness in health care, we searched the literature for evidence on patient focused quality interventions. We systematically searched electronic databases and specialist websites including those of patient organisations, and we did a reference scan for key papers. We aimed to collate existing evidence on the impact of initiatives, particularly that derived from well conducted systematic reviews. All the research we identified can be found at the Health Foundation's Quest for Quality and Improved Performance database (www.health.org.uk/qquip) and a full report of the findings can be downloaded free from the Picker Institute's website.