Person-Focused Care at Kaiser Permanente

Patient-focused care has been described as an extension of patient-centered care, recognizing that patients’ medical needs are best understood and addressed in the context of their entire lives, including their life goals and social, economic, emotional, and spiritual functioning. Kaiser Permanente is expanding its ability to care for members as whole persons, not just as patients, with sensitivity to nonmedical factors in planning and delivering care. We describe emerging examples in several areas: interdisciplinary care planning, behavior change, social care, patient-reported outcome measures, and Total Health. Realizing the vision of person-focused care requires taking every opportunity to fully recognizing that each patient we serve is first and foremost a person.