As I’ve mentioned in several previous posts, my thematic focus for this year is patient-centered care – a style of care that emphasizes education and involvement of patients in medical decision making; integration of medical care, and application of principles of disease prevention and behavioral change. At the end of the day, I want to be able to say that the College has indeed improved patient access to the best cardiovascular health information, as well as provided new tools for health care providers to strengthen patient communication and ultimately improve outcomes.Today’s release of our health policy statement focused on patient-centered care, is just one more way we are moving closer to achieving these goals. The document – an outgrowth of the commitment by the ACCF beginning in 2009 to develop a patient-centered approach to cardiovascular care – was developed by a writing committee made up of a wide range of representatives from general medicine, the cardiac care team, consumers, and advocacy.In particular, the paper highlights several key elements to PCC care, including enhanced clinician/patient communications; health literacy; clinician-directed patient education; assessment of patient-centered outcomes; shared decision-making, and patient empowerment and self-management. The statement provides detailed recommendations related to each of these topics and stresses the importance of health policies that facilitate these recommendations and move the concept of patient-centered care from a much-discussed principle to actual reality.Moving forward this new health policy statement will serve as the cornerstone of the College’s efforts to 1) transform the delivery of cardiovascular care to empower patients across the care continuum; 2) enhance the patient–cardiovascular specialist relationship through the recognized voice of the ACC; and, 3) develop clear recommendations for content to the ACC patient-centered portfolio of tools, campaigns, resources and projects.  The ACC’s Patient-Centered Care Committee under the capable guidance of Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC, continues to make headway on a number of other efforts, including enhancing our CardioSmart web portal so that it is the go-to source for patient education and engagement. We are also continuing to build strategic business partnerships with consumer companies interested in health and wellness and fostering community engagement at local and national levels through health fairs and other health-related events. Finally, a dedicated group of ACC members is analyzing the role of cardiovascular specialists in the patient-centered medical home, while other ACC leaders are taking the lead in incorporating patient-centered care elements into their work. (For a personal perspective on patient-centered care, I invite you read my upcoming "President's Page" in JACC on "Restoring the Patient-Physician Relationship."All of this work is invigorating! Ultimately, medicine is about a healing connection between human beings. We need to re-establish the ideal of medicine as an art as well as a science, and restore the patient-physician relationship. Patient-centered care is the right thing to do, both in principle and in practice.
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