Person-Centered Care – Improving Outcomes

Person-Centered Care is a health care concept developed in both North America and Europe that makes the patient an equal partner with the healthcare professional in the decision-making process of their care. It places emphasis on the patient’s goals, capabilities, and their expectations.

While Person-Centered Care is a growing trend in healthcare due to the improvement in positive outcomes, we have always modeled our care on the same basic approach.  We strongly believe in people taking an active role in their hearing health care instead of a passive one. A person’s preferences and needs should be guiding decisions in a responsive manner rather than a sale.

Person-centred care addresses the importance of knowing the person behind the patient.

1. Patient Narrative

From the very first appointment on we take our clients account of their symptoms and the impact their hearing loss has on their everyday life into full account. The patient is the expert on their feelings and desired outcomes. The patient’s narrative is every bit as important as the medical narrative that will reflect the process of diagnosing and eventually treating the hearing loss itself. This narrative is most evident during the very first appointment when we create a full case history and get to know the person behind the hearing loss.

2. Partnering With Our Clients

Working on our client’s health care plan together through shared decision-making means that we work not just with the client but often with family members as well. After all hearing loss impacts everybody in the family and they will all have goals that they want to see achieved.

3. More Than Just Hearing Aids

One of Polo Park Hearing Centre’s philosophies is to use all the tools available to us and our clients to improve their ability to hear in all environments in a manner they are comfortable with. This means going beyond simply relying on hearing aids being the one and only treatment for hearing loss. Many clients require specific hearing assistance in certain situations. Products designed for telephone or T.V. watching may be what is preferred, or perhaps a combination of devices and some coaching with how to deal with certain listening situations and people. Making use of available devices such as the ubiquitous iPhone and its ability to work as a remote mic has been a real in our client’s care. It doesn’t incur any addition cost and it incredibly handy.  There are a wide variety of hearing assistive devices available with new technology bringing more to the market weekly. We use everything technology affords us use of.

4. Documentation is Key

Detailed record keeping is more important than just a list of patient hearing scores, it is a complete history and personal preferences. A complete file allows any of our staff can see any of our clients and on review of their file always make informed intelligent decisions with the clients that will have the best possible outcome.

What Our Business Is About

Our business is a two-generation family business that has always recognized the benefits of Person-Centered Care. Without knowing your client and involving them in every step of the process to regain their hearing the best they can, you are simply selling hearing aids. That’s not for us. We take pride in the quality of our client service to the degree that we have a free “continuous care guarantee” that guarantees our clients will never have to go without hearing well again. That means responsive personal service when things need adjusting, cleaning, or repairing.

Like we said, we are a small local family business and not a big box store, so we strive to be the good neighbour you can always call on for help. (204) 788-1083

Thanks for reading!