Healthcare Essay: Citizenship, Person-Centered Care, Quality of Life

This essay delves into the critical aspects of healthcare improvement, focusing on citizenship, person-centered care, and quality of life. It emphasizes the significance of person-centered care, which prioritizes patient and family input in health decisions, considering their desires, social environments, and lifestyles to achieve effective health outcomes. The essay highlights the importance of citizenship, encompassing rights, privileges, and duties, and its role in active patient participation in healthcare decisions. It also explores how quality of life, influenced by physical and mental health, beliefs, and social factors, is enhanced through person-centered care and legal rights. The author references multiple studies and sources to support the argument that both person-centered care and citizenship are vital in shaping healthcare decisions and improving overall health outcomes, promoting patient involvement, and addressing healthcare challenges.

Running head: IMPROVING HEALTHCARE
Improving healthcare
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IMPROVING HEALTHCARE

2IMPROVING HEALTHCARE

3IMPROVING HEALTHCARE
Improving healthcare in every country is a significant concern. Therefore not only
physicians but an individual is responsible for improving healthcare. This paper aims at the
understanding citizenship, person-centered care, and quality of life and how these three
aspects improve healthcare.
Person-centered care takes into account the thoughts of the patients and their families
to decide on improving health along with the aid of professionals. It considers the patient’s
desire along with the family situations, social environment and lifestyle of the individual to
develop effective outcomes of health. There are different aspects which include improving
service quality, helping patients in times of their need, making people conscious about their
health, and decreasing social and health service pressure (Butler et al. 2016). Due to limited
resources and increasing demand for health services in UK (United Kingdom), especially in
aging conditions, person-centered care has found to improve the longevity of their lives
(Shields 2015).
Quality of life means the wellbeing of an individual in a society or community. It is
not easy to determine the quality of life as it is subjective but it measures how the person has
understood and perceived his life experiences. Quality of life is affected by the individual’s
physical and mental health, beliefs and relationships with social and environmental features
(Who.int, 2020). In some studies, it is stated that person-centered care is cost-effective and
found to improve the quality of life in aged individuals who have dementia by reducing
anxiety and improving communication with the staff (Discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk, 2020). A study
showed that when patient participation in decision making about health, it improved the
quality of life. They recorded that most of the encounters could express their goals of quality
of life and for the rest, their problems were considered in decision making about their health.

4IMPROVING HEALTHCARE
When patients are allowed to express their goals related to treatment, then it enhances the
communication between the patient and the physician to open up various ways of
medications and diagnosis (Purkaple, Mold and Chen 2016).
There are various understandings of citizenship. As socially acclaimed citizenship is
the position of a citizen in a particular country with all the privileges, rights, and duties.
Quality of life is also affected by the active participation of an individual in society. The key
to promoting sustainable health, active patient and citizen participation is necessary. It is the
right and duty of the people to be involved in decision making and implementing healthcare
requirements. It is beneficial for the country to overcome various health issues by engaging
individual perspectives in a discussion on health topics. Both the private and public
perceptions are required where private experiences on health conditions can improve the
health of broader public concerns and public views on issues such as disease prevention and
implicating biotechnological developments (Williamson 2014).
Therefore from the above discussion, it is understood that both person-centered care
and citizenship are vital in making decisions related to health. Person-centered care improves
health through the individual’s thoughts and goals, whereas citizenship provides the right to
every individual in implementing ideas related to healthcare. It is also understood that quality
of life is improved through person-centered care and legal rights of citizenship.

5IMPROVING HEALTHCARE
References
American Geriatrics Society Expert Panel on Person‐Centered Care, Brummel‐Smith, K.,
Butler, D., Frieder, M., Gibbs, N., Henry, M., Koons, E., Loggers, E., Porock, D., Reuben,
D.B. and Saliba, D., 2016. Person‐centered care: A definition and essential elements. Journal
of the American Geriatrics Society, 64(1), pp.15-18.
Discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk (2020). Person-centred care improves quality of life for care home
residents with dementia. [online] Discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk. Available at:
https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/content/signal-00574/person-centred-care-improves-quality-of-
life-for-care-home-residents-with-dementia [Accessed 11 Feb. 2020].
Purkaple, B.A., Mold, J.W. and Chen, S., 2016. Encouraging patient-centered care by
including quality-of-life questions on pre-encounter forms. The Annals of Family
Medicine, 14(3), pp.221-226.
Shields, L., 2015. What is “family-centred care”?. European Journal for Person Centered
Healthcare, 3(2), pp.139-144.
Who.int (2020). WHO | WHOQOL: Measuring Quality of Life. [online] Who.int. Available
at: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/survey/whoqol-qualityoflife/en/ [Accessed 11 Feb. 2020].
Williamson, L., 2014. Patient and citizen participation in health: the need for improved
ethical support. The American Journal of Bioethics, 14(6), pp.4-16.