Relationship-Centered Care

Relationship-centered care promotes a systems perspective, which values not only the traditional provider-patient relationship, but all other supporting and interdependent relationships, which ultimately impact the care of the patient. Within the patient-provider relationship, the patient’s agenda and emotions are fully acknowledged and negotiated, while the provider still attends to their own clinical agenda and human needs. This same negotiation process, however, must also extend across team members, leadership, and connected systems as well. In this chapter, the authors seek to explain both the theoretical framework of relationship-centered care, and illustrate the diverse tensions that can occur while fully attending to social dynamics in order to successfully accomplish the task at hand. Elevating social activity ahead of the technical strategy acknowledges the unwavering tenet that, ultimately, all work is accomplished through relationships. Thus, the quality of outcomes sought is directly contingent on the strength and quality of the relationship-building process within the system.