relationshipcentered

Relationship-centered care is a philosophy and practice framework in healthcare that treats relationships as core to healing. It sees the patient, family members, clinicians, and other care partners as mutually influencing each other's well-being, decisions, and outcomes. The approach extends beyond technical tasks to consider emotional, social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of care and acknowledges the context of care settings.

Core principles include honoring the person beyond their illness, recognizing the mutual influence of relationships on care, engaging in collaborative decision making, respecting autonomy and dignity, fostering trust, and attending to the needs of family caregivers when appropriate. The approach also emphasizes reciprocity—clinicians learn from patients and families as much as patients learn from clinicians.

Relationship-centered care is often contrasted with or integrated with patient-centered care. While patient-centered care focuses on aligning care with patient preferences, RCC explicitly foregrounds relationships as the mechanism by which care is delivered and experienced, including the well-being of clinicians and teams.

Practices to implement RCC include communication training, shared decision making, involving families in rounds and planning, team-based care, narrative and reflective practices to understand patient stories, and organizational policies that support relational time and continuity of care.

Evidence on RCC shows potential improvements in patient and clinician satisfaction, trust, adherence, safety, and care continuity, though measurable outcomes vary and implementation can be hindered by time constraints and organizational culture. It is used across settings such as primary care, hospital care, palliative care, and long-term care.