Putting "what matters to you?" into practice: a focused team-based ethnographic study on goal-oriented care

As healthcare systems transition toward person-centred integrated care (PC-IC), goal-oriented care (GOC) has gained prominence as a conceptual approach to aligning care with what matters most to patients. However, there is limited empirical insight of how GOC is enacted in daily practice and what competencies this requires from providers. This study explores how primary care providers enact GOC in daily practice to inform future training and competency development.

A focused, team-based ethnographic approach was used, combining non-participant observations with short reflective interviews. Primary care providers were purposively sampled from a cohort who completed interprofessional GOC training, ensuring disciplinary diversity. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify behaviours and competencies underpinning GOC in practice.

Providing GOC requires competencies beyond knowledge or task-specific skills, and is enacted through contextual, relational, and reflective competencies. Providers showed contextual awareness by linking care actions to patients' lived experiences and personal goals. They built relational trust through open, authentic, and non-hierarchical communication to co-create care decisions with patients. Reflective competence was shown when providers reassessed care decisions in light of patient goals, assumptions, and team input.

These findings highlight the importance of strengthening reflective competencies in training of primary care providers. In practice, this entails supporting providers to reflect on their professional responsibilities, alongside those of the other disciplines they work with in health and social care; and critically engage with assumptions. This reflective capacity is key to embedding GOC in daily practice and aligning care with what truly matters to patients.