Different Ways to Understand Patient-Centered Health Law

Abstract

While “patient-centeredness” is currently a popular aspiration for medical practice, it is far from clear what the notion might mean for law, as in the idea of “patient-centered health law.” This short essay considers a set of seven choices that should be considered to lend precision and coherence to the idea of “patient-centeredness” so that the concept might be useful for guiding actual decisions in law and policy. The essay was written in anticipation of a conference on "Patient-Centered Health Law and Ethics," held at Wake Forest Law School on April 15-16, 2010, organized by Professors Mark Hall and Lois Shepherd.

Keywords: Health Law, Patient-Centered, Patient Autonomy, Health Care Consumer, Patient, Reasonable Patient, Family-Centered, Relational, Centering