23 October 2023

Person-centred care at a nephrology department

Provision of person-centred care that is timely, evidence-based, and responsive to patients’ preferences and life circumstances challenges resource-constrained healthcare systems. Reflecting the need to systemise person-centred care, a specialised nephrology department in the Capital Region of Denmark, initiated a restructuring of clinical practice in 2019 including establishment of a pre-dialysis outpatient clinic to ensure timely preparation for renal replacement therapy. A longitudinal qualitative multi-perspective research project containing several sub-studies was initiated to feed into the structural changes by exploring nephrology care trajectories from a patient, healthcare professional, and organisational perspective. Further reflecting findings across participants, a graphic conversation tool was developed. The tool is divided into two aspects with one illustrating the biomedical circumstances with different available treatment trajectories whereas the other aspect reflects the need to enhance a person-centred approach to clinical encounters with in-depth conversations on individual life circumstances. The tool aims to act as a holistic conversation aid, to guide conversations in clinical encounters, and to support patients in selecting the treatment as they see fit.

The research project is a partnership between researchers at CEHA and Centre for Cancer and Organ Diseases, Rigshospitalet (2019-2023). The research was carried out at the Department of Nephrology with funding from NordeaFonden (02-2013-0200). The visualisation of the conversation tool was designed by Anna Laybourn, Brain2Business.