Abstract
This survey study is divided into five sections. The first section describes how traditional, and for centuries in medicine dominating interest in the disease itself, has been gradually completed by the interest in personal peculiarities of patients suffering from certain diseases.
The second section presents the historical context of that change, mainly three impulses involved: the interest of specialists in handicapped and elderly persons; understanding the patient as a client, whose individual needs must be met by the health care; the effort to assess the social impact of health care. The third section explains the content of basic terms used in this field: person-centered care; patient-centered care; patient-centered medicine; patient and their family centered care; people or population centered care.
The fourth section notes that although WHO supports the approach focusing on the person/ patient and on the population, there are many barriers that complicate the implementation of the new approach in everyday real practice; the study informs about the most important ones. The fifth section draws attention to the weak points of the new approach.
The study concludes that the goal of patient-centered care is to improve the quality of care provided, outcomes of the care, to increase peoples' satisfaction, and ultimately to improve the health of the entire population.