More than one dollop of cortex: patients' experiences of interprofessional care at an urban family health centre.
While Canada's government has called for collaborative patient-centered care, there is a paucity of research on patients' perspectives of such interprofessional care. This qualitative study conducted at an urban health centre begins to address our knowledge gap through semi-structured interviews and narrative analysis strategies. Findings indicate that "good care" is interprofessional care in the sense that patients perceive it as based in a strong patient-professional relationship that facilitates access to and communication amongst health professionals. Patients affirmed a frequent refrain of family physicians that the most valued characteristics of a health care team are the three "A's": availability, affability and ability. While on several dimensions, the delivery of care was rooted in a patient-centered model, professionals, at points, struggled to find common ground with patients and initiated interprofessional care as a strategy for grappling with this conflict.
Toronto Western Hospital Family Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. sarah_shaw@post.harvard.edu
Sarah Naomi
SN
Shaw
D003151:Community Health Centers; D005192:Family Health; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009864:Ontario; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D014505:Urban Population