Long-term diseases are today the leading cause of mortality worldwide and are estimated to be the leading cause of disability by 2020. Person-centered care (PCC) has been shown to advance concordance between care provider and patient on treatment plans, improve health outcomes and increase patient satisfaction. Yet, despite these and other documented benefits, there are a variety of significant challenges to putting PCC into clinical practice. Although care providers today broadly acknowledge PCC to be an important part of care, in our experience we must establish routines that initiate, integrate, and safeguard PCC in daily clinical practice to ensure that PCC is systematically and consistently practiced, i.e. not just when we feel we have time for it. In this paper, we propose a few simple routines to facilitate and safeguard the transition to PCC. We believe that if conscientiously and systematically applied, they will help to make PCC the focus and mainstay of care in long-term illness.

Heart failure is a serious condition and equivalent to malignant disease in terms of symptom burden and mortality. At this moment only a comparatively small number of heart failure patients receive specialist palliative care. Heart failure patients may have generic palliative care needs, such as refractory multifaceted symptoms, communication and decision making issues and the requirement for family support. The Advanced Heart Failure Study Group of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology organized a workshop to address the issue of palliative care in heart failure to increase awareness of the need for palliative care. Additional objectives included improving the accessibility and quality of palliative care for heart failure patients and promoting the development of heart failure‐orientated palliative care services across Europe. This document represents a synthesis of the presentations and discussion during the workshop and describes recommendations in the area of delivery of quality care to patients and families, education, treatment coordination, research and policy.

AimsPerson-centred care (PCC) emphasizes a partnership in care between patients and healthcare professionals and is advocated by WHO as a key component of quality health care. We evaluated outcomes of PCC in hospitalized patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) with respect to the length of hospital stay (LOS), activities of daily living (ADL), health-related quality of life (HRQL) and 6-month readmission rate.Methods and resultsDuring 2008–2010, 248 consecutive patients hospitalized for symptoms of worsening CHF were enrolled in a controlled before and after designed study. A Usual care group (n= 123) was recruited according to pre-defined criteria to map usual CHF care and assess outcomes at five designated hospital wards. Based on the mapping, a panel of in-house clinicians and researchers developed measures aimed at aligning usual care with basic PCC principles. These measures were incorporated into a study protocol to guide care procedures at the same five wards. Person-centred care was then implemented at these wards and evaluated in 125 patients. Both length of hospital stay and 6-month readmission were extracted from patient records. Activities of daily living were evaluated at baseline and discharge and HRQL was evaluated at baseline and after 3 months. In the analysis of all patients, the LOS was reduced by 1 day (P= 0.16) while retaining ADL (P= 0.07). When PCC was fully implemented (per protocol analysis), LOS was reduced by 2.5 days (P= 0.01) and the ADL-level better preserved (P= 0.04). Health-related quality of life and time-to-first readmission did not differ.ConclusionIn this proof-of-concept study, our findings suggest that a fully implemented PCC approach shortens hospital stay and maintains functional performance in patients hospitalized for worsening CHF, without increasing risk for readmission or jeopardizing patients' HRQL.

Guidelines on heart failure (HF) stress the importance of lifestyle advice, although there is little evidence that such recommendations improve symptoms or prognosis. Patients experience symptoms of different intensities which impair their daily activities and reduce the quality-of-life. To cope with their clinical condition, many patients seek advice about lifestyle and self-management strategies when in contact with medical care providers, particularly specialized HF services. Self-care management is an important part of HF treatment, thus health professionals working with patients with HF have recognized the need for more specific recommendations on lifestyle advice. The present paper summarizes the available evidence, promotes self-care management, and aims to provide practical advice for health professionals delivering care to HF patients. It also defines avenues of research to optimize self-care strategies in a number of key areas to derive further benefits.--