• Ana-Maria Vranceanu, Cynthia Cooper, and David Ring.
• Orthopedic Hand and Upper Extremity Services, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
• Hand Clin. 2009 Feb 1;25(1):83-96, vii.

AbstractIncreasing data suggest that the traditional clinician-centered or disease-focused, biomedical approach to illness is less effective than a biopsychosocial, evidence-based, patient-centered approach to illness, particularly for chronic pain conditions. This article distinguishes patient-centered care from more traditional and outdated biomedical decision-making models; illustrates the complexity of illness behavior with a patient example; delves into the communication issues raised by this complexity, thereby demonstrating how best evidence can sometimes run counter to biases and intuition; provides a summary of evidence that patient-centered care positively affects outcomes; and explores how the shared decision-making approach along with cultivation of good communication skills can facilitate evidence-based practice.

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