Measuring what really matters: Towards a coherent measurement system to support person-centred care

Dr Alf Collins introduces ‘Dorothy’, a hypothetical patient with a number of long-term conditions. Dr Collins puts forward ideas to help ensure that the system, and the measures used in the system, always take account of what matters to Dorothy.

The paper describes the principles of person-centred care and the activities that a person-centred system should undertake in different contexts. It then describes how to think about constructing measurement systems for use in each of these contexts. The paper also describes the core constituents of person-centredness to demonstrate the steps that could be followed in order to develop a coherent measurement system.