Bridging the Gap at the Center of Patient Centeredness Individual Patient Preferences in Health Care Decision Making

摘要

Patient-centered care has been identified as one of 6 aims to achieving the health care system quality aspired to in the 21st century. It is described as health care that is "respectful and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values and ensures that patient values guide all clinical decisions."During the past decade, the importance of using individual patient values and preferences to guide cancer screening decisions has become clear, and the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing to screen for prostate cancer is a case in point.The PSA screening decision has been known as a preference-sensitive decision, in which several alternatives exist and complex trade-offs between the risks and benefits of each alternative must be weighed in making the choice.