What is the potential of patient shadowing as a patient-centred method?

Introduction A recently published study by Yanes et al1 suggests that observation in clinical environments may have an especially valuable role in capturing the organisational and situational factors that shape clinical processes. In data-dense and high-risk environments, observation sheds light on the specific subprocesses of complex clinical activities (eg, information transfer, communication patterns, distractions) and their effects on patient care. Observation also captures aspects of patients’ and providers' experiences that may be missed by traditional research (eg, interviews or questionnaires) and that people may find difficult to articulate. Yanes et al discuss the different potentialities of in-person and video recorded observations, but the range of observational techniques that can be adopted merit further consideration. In this article, I propose that observational methods in healthcare could, building on recent work,2–4 be extended to include patient shadowing. Such an approach may have...

Source: BMJ Quality and Safety - March 19, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Liberati, E. G. Tags: Viewpoints Source Type: research