Patients appreciate Integrated Family Healthcare for many reasons including the following.
- A highly coordinated team, rather than fragmented referrals, provides seamless continuity of care.
- Healthcare includes primary care and preventive medicine, educational services, skills training, counseling, psychotherapy and other services that have proven to improve patient functioning and treatment outcomes.
- Healthcare is provided by multidisciplinary teams that include mental health and biomedical professionals in a team whose members pro-actively communicate with one another and integrate all aspects of the patient’s health care.
- The team also includes the patient and his or her family – defined as anyone bound by legal, marriage, blood or emotional bonds – who are respected as partners in, rather than objects of, health care.
- The patient and his or her family are the experts regarding their own experiences and have resources that are incorporated in treatment decisions and plans.
- The patient and his or her family understand, agree to and are a part of all treatment decisions.
