While the growing emphasis on patient-centered care has turned from a theory into an active tool in the development of public health care policy, a greater emphasis must be placed on cataloguing and examining more closely those efforts.

Or so says a new study from the Urban Institute.

According to the study, policy-makers need “…a clearer picture of where current policies have already taken us and where they are heading.”

The study also notes that “… efforts in HHS and elsewhere in the federal government should be comprehensively catalogued and subjected to the same strategic scrutiny as other care improvement activities” and that “The pace of change also underlines the need for better measures and more information on effective implementation.”

For a closer look at the study’s findings, go here, to the Urban Institute’s web site, to find the study “The Road to Making Patient-Centered Care Real.”