Special Section:
Person-Centered Care: Where Patients Flourish
Catholic health care embraces person-centered care not because it is a health care trend, but because it is the right thing to do. Its roots are deep in the Catholic tradition. Articles in this issue explore some of the elements of person-centered care, some practices that ensure it, and the theology that undergirds it.
Teamwork the New Way
BY MARTHA TWADDLE, MD, FACP, FAAHPM
True patient- and family-centered care depends on an interdisciplinary health care team committed to integrating efforts and sharing information, both formally and informally. Teams must be flexible and decentralized and committed to continuous performance and quality improvement.
Empowered Patients are Here to Stay
BY MARK CRAWFORD
"Participatory medicine," in which highly engaged patients take an active role in their own health care management, is vital to patient satisfaction and an inevitable and important step in the changing health care model.
"Theology of the Body" Underpins Health Care
BY KATHLEEN A. KALB, Ph.D., RN
Pope John Paul II, drawing on a long tradition in Catholic thought, gave a gift to Catholic health care with a "theology of the body" that understands the human person, created in the image of God, as a sacrament. It is through the body that persons express love and fulfill the very meaning of their being and existence.
Small Acts become Sacred Encounters
BY JEFF THIES, D.Min.
A "spotlighting" program at St. Joseph Health System strives to make every encounter with patients a "sacred encounter." Not leaving this goal to chance, administrators and caregivers have selected specific scenes and gestures, and put them to the test, to ensure that words become actions.