Understanding What Are the Essential Elements of Person-Centered Care?

September 30, 2025 •

5 min read

According to a 2021 article in The Pharmaceutical Journal, the World Health Organization shifted from using 'patient-centered care' to 'person-centered care' to emphasize the 'whole person,' extending beyond clinical issues. This fundamental shift requires understanding what are the essential elements of person-centered care for better health outcomes and patient empowerment.

Quick Summary

Person-centered care prioritizes the individual's values, preferences, and holistic needs to guide clinical decisions. Key elements include compassionate communication, shared decision-making, care coordination, and involving family and friends.

Key Points

Respectful Partnership: Building a relationship based on dignity, compassion, and respect is fundamental to person-centered care.
Shared Decision-Making: Individuals are active partners in co-creating their care plans, ensuring their preferences and goals guide all clinical decisions.
Holistic Perspective: Care goes beyond the medical condition to address the 'whole person,' including their emotional, social, and cultural context.
Coordinated Support: Seamless communication and integration among all providers ensures continuity of care, especially for individuals with complex needs.
Empowerment Focus: Supporting a person's independence and building their skills fosters confidence in managing their own health and well-being.
Involved Family and Friends: Loved ones are included in care and decision-making according to the individual's wishes, strengthening their support system.
Physical and Emotional Comfort: Equal emphasis is placed on addressing both physical symptoms and emotional distress, such as fear and anxiety.

Person-centered care represents a profound evolution in modern healthcare, moving away from a one-size-fits-all, provider-driven model towards a collaborative, respectful partnership with the individual. This holistic approach acknowledges that a person's health is influenced by their unique life circumstances, beliefs, values, and goals. By treating individuals as equal partners in their care, healthcare professionals can foster greater trust, empower patients, and achieve more meaningful health outcomes. The principles and practices of person-centered care extend across all healthcare settings and are critical for providing high-quality, effective support.

Core Elements of Person-Centered Care

Respect, Dignity, and Compassion

At its heart, person-centered care is founded on a relationship of mutual respect. This means healthcare providers must afford people dignity, respect, and compassion at all times, validating their views, choices, and decisions. It involves understanding what is important to the individual and avoiding assumptions about their needs or how they want to be treated. This compassionate approach builds trust and ensures the individual feels safe and valued throughout their care journey.

Collaborative and Shared Decision-Making

In a person-centered model, the individual is an active and equal partner in developing their care plan. This contrasts sharply with the traditional paternalistic approach where the provider makes all clinical decisions. Shared decision-making involves an open dialogue between the person and the care team to discuss treatment options, weigh the benefits and risks, and align the plan with the person's informed preferences and life goals. Empowering the individual to participate actively leads to higher satisfaction and better adherence to treatment.

Personalised and Holistic Approach

A one-size-fits-all strategy is ineffective for person-centered care. Care plans are tailored to the unique individual, taking into account their social, economic, cultural, and spiritual background, not just their medical diagnosis. A holistic perspective means looking at the 'whole person' and understanding how their condition fits into the context of their life. This allows for a more comprehensive and effective support strategy that addresses a wider range of needs.

Coordinated and Integrated Care

Individuals with complex or long-term conditions often require support from multiple healthcare and social service providers. Coordinated care is vital to prevent care from becoming disjointed. In practice, this means clear communication among all team members, seamless transitions between care settings, and a designated lead point of contact to ease navigation for the person receiving care. An integrated approach ensures that information is shared effectively and care plans are consistently applied across all services.

Emotional and Physical Support

Person-centered care recognizes that health challenges impact an individual's emotional well-being as much as their physical state. Key elements include providing excellent pain management and attending to physical needs, such as ensuring a clean, comfortable, and accessible environment. Just as importantly, it involves providing empathy and emotional support to alleviate the fear and anxiety that often accompany illness. By addressing both physical and emotional comfort, providers can create a more supportive and healing environment.

Involvement of Family and Friends

Family and friends are often a person's primary source of support. In person-centered care, they are involved in care and decision-making to the extent the individual desires. Recognizing and supporting the needs of loved ones ensures that caregivers feel equipped and included, strengthening the person's overall support system and improving outcomes.

Empowerment and Independence

Rather than creating dependency, person-centered care supports individuals in recognizing and developing their own strengths and abilities. The goal is to empower them to live as independently and fulfilling a life as possible. This may involve providing tailored education to enhance health literacy, offering support tools, and celebrating their efforts in self-management.

Person-Centered vs. Traditional Care Models


Aspect	Person-Centered Care	Traditional Care Model
Focus	Holistic; the 'whole person' and their context.	Clinical; specific diseases, illnesses, and symptoms.
Decision-Making	Collaborative and shared between the individual and the care team.	Paternalistic; provider acts as the sole expert making primary decisions.
Individual's Role	Active partner, empowered, and engaged.	Passive recipient of care, instructed to follow medical orders.
Perspective	Prioritizes the individual's values, preferences, and goals.	Centers on clinical evidence and established protocols.
Scope of Care	Broad; includes physical, emotional, social, and environmental factors.	Narrow; focused on the medical condition and treatment.
Outcome Metrics	Focuses on patient-reported outcomes, quality of life, and goal attainment.	Measures clinical benchmarks like lab results or survival rates.

Implementing Person-Centered Care: A Practical Framework

Implementing a person-centered approach requires a systemic and cultural shift. It involves buy-in from all levels of a healthcare organization, from leadership to frontline staff.

Cultivate a patient-centric culture: Senior leadership must champion person-centered care to create an organizational culture that values empathy, collaboration, and respect. This shift must move staff from a deficit-based mindset to a strengths-based one.
Train healthcare providers: Training staff to improve communication, empathetic listening, and shared decision-making is essential. This training should be explicit in curricula to ensure competencies are embedded.
Utilize multidisciplinary teams: Form teams that are adaptable to the individual's evolving needs. This team should include not only medical professionals but also social workers, peer support workers, and others.
Enhance care coordination through technology: Seamless information sharing is critical for effective coordination. Integrated electronic health records and shared care plan access can ensure all providers have up-to-date information. For more on integrated health services, the World Health Organization has published a framework that outlines key strategies.
Measure quality based on feedback: Move beyond traditional metrics to measure success based on the individual's experience. Use patient-reported outcomes and regular feedback to ensure care is aligned with goals and preferences.

The Profound Impact of Person-Centered Care

Embracing person-centered care delivers substantial benefits for individuals, staff, and the healthcare system as a whole. For individuals, greater involvement in their care leads to improved health literacy, increased confidence, and better long-term outcomes. When people feel heard and respected, they are more likely to adhere to treatment plans and engage in positive health behaviors. This collaborative approach can also reduce patient anxiety and improve emotional well-being.

For providers, practicing person-centered care can lead to higher job satisfaction and reduced stress, as it fosters more meaningful relationships with patients. A positive work environment and improved morale often result from delivering high-quality, compassionate care. For the healthcare system, this approach can improve resource allocation and reduce costs by avoiding unnecessary tests and hospitalizations.

Conclusion

What are the essential elements of person-centered care? They are a collection of principles and practices centered on respect, collaboration, and holism. This model requires a fundamental shift in mindset, viewing individuals not as passive patients but as partners with unique values, preferences, and goals. By prioritizing respectful relationships, shared decision-making, coordinated services, and holistic support, healthcare can become a more empowering and effective experience for everyone involved. Ultimately, person-centered care ensures that the human element remains at the forefront of the healing process, driving not only better health outcomes but also greater trust and fulfillment. The path to achieving this requires commitment from all stakeholders, ensuring that care is not just for people, but truly with people.

Frequently Asked Questions

Traditional care often relies on a paternalistic model where providers make decisions for the patient. In contrast, person-centered care is a collaborative partnership where the individual's values, preferences, and goals are central to all decisions.

While often used interchangeably, person-centered care is a broader, more holistic concept than patient-centered care. It considers the 'whole person' in the context of their life, family, and community, rather than focusing solely on their immediate medical condition.

Shared decision-making is crucial because it ensures the individual's preferences, values, and life goals are incorporated into the treatment plan. This process increases engagement, satisfaction, and adherence, leading to better overall health outcomes.

Family and friends are included as part of the care team based on the individual's wishes and preferences. Their role is to provide crucial emotional and social support, and their needs are also considered to ensure the individual's overall well-being.

Emotional support is a core component, as health issues can cause significant fear and anxiety. Addressing these feelings promotes a sense of safety, comfort, and trust, which is vital for healing and positive health outcomes.

Effective care coordination relies on clear communication among all providers and designating a lead point of contact. Using integrated health records and systems that ensure seamless transitions between different care settings also improves coordination.

Performance is measured using feedback directly from the person and their caregivers. Success indicators focus on whether the person's goals were met, their satisfaction with their involvement, and improvements in their quality of life, not just clinical metrics.