Advancements and Challenges in Patient Centered Health Systems

The last three decades have witnessed major change and development in the rapidly
growing field of health services. Whist, in the past relative to professional and formal health
care systems patient centered systems of health care has tended to be more hidden from
view and under-developed, the last two decades have witnessed a growing focus on aspects
of patient centered health systems – on self-management, informal, and alternative sources
of care and access, and use of resources and information fuelled by the rise of the internet
and new technologies. Patient centered systems of health care have also been fuelled by
social forces from seeking to re-evaluate and act on dissatisfaction with existing models of
care to the growth in social norms of greater autonomy and expectations of greater
alignment of power, knowledge, and relationships between professionals and patients.

Through innovative methodology there has been a greater ability to capture and understand
the nature of patient centered work in relation to health care, which include the use of new
technologies, and strategies for managing health and illness commonly found in domestic
and community settings. The latter has produced both benefits and new demands for
people living and managing a range of health conditions. This has also meant that patient
systems are gradually emerging from the shadows in terms of their value and contribution
to the design and delivery of health services more generally. Research and knowledge in this
area is growing rapidly.

“Advancements and Challenges in Patient Centered Health Systems”, led by Professor Anne
Rogers, Specialty Chief Editor of the Patient Centered Health Systems section, and Associate
Editor, Dr. Euan Sadler, focus on new insights, novel developments, current challenges,
latest discoveries, recent advances and future perspectives in the field of patient-centered
health systems.

We welcome a broad range of submissions that support a collective critical appraisal of the
past, the current state of the art, and the future of patient centered systems of health care
as a developing field. Our aspiration for this Research Topic is to bring together a body of
work that supports radical and innovative ideas and an internationally contextualized
discussion about how the field of patient centered systems of health care might shift and
progress. From here on in extending the depth and focus of beyond the at times rhetoric of
patient expertise and a tendency for bureaucratized means of ‘patient engagement’ within
formal health care service organizations. To prevail over a focus on the pro-active and multi-
dimensional efforts and work that reside within the current realities of patient centered
systems of health care.

This collection welcomes theoretical and policy analysis, commentary submissions, scoping,
narrative and systematic reviews, and in particular, empirical work presenting qualitative,
quantitative, or mixed methods research. Submissions led or co-authored by citizen-patients
are especially welcomed. Some example topics might include:
• Descriptions, theorizing and discussing of how patients have been or are currently
actively and productively participating in patient centered health care systems and
the contexts and environments which makes this possible;
• Evaluating novel patient centered system initiatives and patient types of work which
focus on a particular phase of the life course or population group;
• Research of specific patient centered health care initiatives in outdoor open
community and alternative settings;
• Reviews exploring the nature, advantages and or drawbacks of patient centered
approaches to health care and systems;
• Studies exploring the experiences of patients’ burdens, advantages, benefits and
disadvantages of patient centered approaches;
• Studies exploring the implementation and interface between patient centered
health care systems and more traditional clinical delivery of healthcare to patients;
• Discussions of how patient centered health care systems can be optimally organized;
• Historical, social, and policy analysis of patient centered systems of health care.