Winning Conditions?

The authors of the paper, "The Patient Experience in Ontario 2020: What is Possible?", framed both the current state as well as the future of what patient experience might look like in five years. To ensure intention is catalyzed into meaningful change to improve experience and outcomes, we suggest four winning conditions. The first is to change the language; patients are people too, irrespective of their disease or illness; person-centred is inclusive language and ought to be the focus. The second condition is focused on leaders who play a critical role to establish, build and embed person-centred within the organization. The third and fourth winning conditions are building the evidence base and using effective and meaningful engagement, moving beyond advice, to partnership, respectively. Person-centred care is not the flavour of the month, it is here to stay. Ontarians are important actors in the system not only as users of the system but owners as well. To those who might argue that it is costly to do this work, what are the costs to not engage? Are we satisfied not only as administrators, and clinicians, but as patients at some point, to maintain the status quo?