Inspirational Inaugurals - Treating people well: what should we value in healthcare?

Inspirational Inaugurals - Treating people well: what should we value in healthcare?
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This is a past event

Professor Vikki Entwistle's inaugural lecture - Health services aspire to be person-centred, safe, effective, efficient and fair, but can we really have it all?

Concern about healthcare quality goes beyond concern about the extent to which drugs, surgery or other interventions prevent or alleviate disease and illness. When people talk about how good or bad healthcare was, they often invoke concepts such as compassion and respect. They highlight experiences such as being listened to, being enabled to understand, being cared for as an individual, and having a say in what affects them. Quality improvement leaders associate these and similar experiences with 'person centred care'.

But what should health services be doing to treat people well in the broader senses of that phrase? What is 'person centred care', and how does it relate to 'effective', 'efficient', 'safe', timely' and 'fair' care? Is it possible to have them all? Answers to these questions depend on value concepts and moral reasoning – as well as an understanding of healthcare provision. The value concepts that are used, and the ways they are interpreted and drawn on, have important practical implications for healthcare policy and practice, but they have been somewhat neglected in health services research.

This inaugural lecture will review developments in thinking about 'person centred care', highlighting the importance of ideas about 'autonomy' and the diverse consequences of healthcare delivery. Reflecting insights that are emerging as increasing attention is paid to patients' perspectives, it will suggest fresh ways of considering what constitutes success in healthcare.

This lecture is part of the 'New Faces, Fresh Ideas in Medicine, Nutrition and Health' series.Our Public Engagement team coordinate several series through the year to connect communities with the latest research and discovery. See our latest programmes at http://www.engagingaberdeen.co.uk/

Vikki Entwistle has worked in health services research for almost 20 years. She uses a combination of social research and philosophical approaches, and has been at the forefront of the development of ideas about improving information provision for patients, and involving patients in health services research, treatment decision making and the pursuit of patient safety.

Vikki's work on the theoretical underpinnings of 'person centred care' continues to attract international interest. She is currently using ideas about people's socially shaped opportunities (capabilities) to explore concerns about social justice in healthcare.

 

Speaker
Professor Vikki Entwistle
Hosted by
The College of Life Sciences and Medicine
Venue
Institute of Medical Sciences
Contact

Booking not required, but for further information contact Emma Webb, Assistant College Registrar - e.webb@abdn.ac.uk