What is person-centred care planning and why is it important in a digital care record?

Person-centred care provides a multitude of benefits for both health providers and the individual, including:

• Focusing on what matters – It caters to the individuality of people to deliver a meaningful service that listens to want each resident wants instead of giving them what they don’t. This means solutions aren’t provided that don’t align with residents’ needs, beliefs and desires.
• It empowers – Patients are more likely to feel empowered and listened to with person-centred care. This helps get them motivated and passionate about their course of treatment and care.
• Makes healthcare more transparent – Creating a system that is very open and transparent means clients are more likely to feel comfortable getting involved and even raising any questions, concerns and feedback to the care providers.
• Promoting collaboration – Person-centred care makes it easier to involve other family and friends in the management and planning of care. This is particularly useful when looking at elderly care where family members may also support in caring for a patient. This helps ensure their views and situations are listened to and incorporated into the care plan.
• It’s easier to change / modify over time – As more people are involved in the planning of the care, it’s less reliant on certain carers so this makes it easier for other people to read the plan and talk this through with the individual, making any changes if necessary.
• Promoting resident needs – It puts the needs of residents first and prevents the healthcare provider from offering unwanted solutions. This ensures each client gets the care they desire.
• Avoiding wasting resources – Healthcare which isn’t formulated for the individual can often result in an excessive waste of time and money through care that isn’t suitable. In contrast, person-centred care helps remove the need for residents to come back with the same issues that might have been ignored in previous plans.
• Allowing for predictive care solutions – If recorded with care planning software, it presents opportunities for predictive healthcare through technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. In the coming years, this could help create recommendations based on previously successful care plans and help provide patients with more options.
• Driving innovation in care planning – As carers need to take individual circumstances into consideration, it encourages carers to think outside the box and adopt more creative and innovative solutions. 
• Improves continuity of care – Digital records allow staff to quickly understand a resident’s needs, preferences and routines.