UPFRONT | From the editor All about the patient Patient-centred care is currently dominating many discussions in the chiropractic community and promises to continue to be a hot topic of conversation among health professionals. It was certainly the theme for many health care conferences I’ve attended this past year. This clinical method of putting patients at the centre of health care delivery is not new. In fact since the early 2000s, many health-related publications have covered this topic. In its 2001 publication titled, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century , the U.S. Institute of Medicine defined patient-centred care as, “providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.” Patient-centred care may not be a novel concept, but it surely has not been fully exploited after all these years. The increasing demand for a better, more efficient health-care system is pushing the envelope in patient care and, as a consequence, driving health-care professionals toward collaboration. Adopting a patient-centred approach does not only require doctors to re-spect and respond to the patients’ “preferences, needs and values.” It should also compel practitioners to go beyond the four walls of the clinic – acknowl-edging their own abilities and limitations – and work with other health experts to deliver the best possible clinical care for the patient. Patient-centred care and interprofessional collaboration – the latter is almost a necessary consequence of the former. A practice cannot claim to be pa-tient-centred without genuine intent and willingness to work not just within the same profession but with other health professionals as well. I can’t imagine a practice being truly sustainable and successful if it fails to put patient’s in-terests first and foremost – and push egos to the back burner. At the B.C. Chiropractic Convention last fall, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Kim Humphreys, a Canadian chiropractor who is the head of the Chiropractic Medicine programme under the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. When asked about his insight from years of working collaboratively with the Swiss medical community, he replied: “I think our profession would be a lot better off if we stop focusing on ourselves. We should be constantly talking about how we’re going to be better practi-tioners for our patients. How do we work in a team. It should be all about the patient.” February 2016 Volume 21, Number 1 EDITOR Mari-Len De Guzman [email protected] (905) 726-4659 PUBLISHER Christine Livingstone [email protected] (519) 429-5173 • (888) 599-2228 ext. 239 ACCOUNT COORDINATOR Shannon Drumm [email protected] (888) 599-2228 ext. 219 MEDIA DESIGNER Gerry Wiebe CIRCULATION MANAGER Anita Madden GROUP PUBLISHER Martin McAnulty [email protected] DIRECTOR OF SOUL/COO Sue Fredericks Published and printed by Annex Business Media, 105 Donly Drive South, Simcoe, ON, Canada N3Y 4N5 Publication Mail Agreement #40065710 ISSN 1488-6952 CIRCULATION e-mail: [email protected] Tel: (416) 510-5189 Fax: (416) 510-5170 Mail: 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON M3B 2S9 Canadian Chiropractor is published eight times a year: February, April, May, June, July/August, September, October and December. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Canada – 1 Year $24.00 (with GST $25.20, with HST/QST $27.12) (HST #867172652RT0001) USA – 1 Year $35.00 (US Funds) Occasionally, Canadian Chiropractor will mail information on behalf of industry-related groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above. No part of the editorial content of this publication may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permission. ©2016 Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the products or services advertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of the publication. MARI-LEN DE GUZMAN, Editor EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD @CanChiropractor Victoria Coleman, DC; Connie J. D’Astolfo, DC, Dip HA, PhD (cand); Pierre DesLauriers, DC; James P. Laws, DC, FRCCSS(C)(Hon); David Leprich, DC; Wanda Lee MacPhee, DC; Peter Moore, DC; Don Nixdorf, DC; Renae Rogers, DC; Greg Stewart, BPE, DC 6 Canadian Chiropractor February 2016 www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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