Clinicians should not only ask patients "What's the matter?" they should also ask "What matters to you?" when making care decisions with patients, according to Maureen Bisognano, president emerita and senior fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
In recognition of this sentiment, "What Matters to You" Day is celebrated globally each year on or around June 6. Here are five things to know about the day.
1. Michael Barry, MD, first introduced the concept of asking patients what mattered to them in a 2012 New England Journal of Medicine article on shared decision-making.
2. From there, "What Matters to You?" Day started in Norway in 2014 and became more widespread after Healthcare Improvement Scotland got involved.
3. According to Healthcare Improvement Scotland, the day "aims to encourage and support more meaningful conversations between people who provide health and social care and the people, families and carers who receive health and social care."
4. Hospitals across the world celebrate the day in different ways, including hanging posters, creating t-shirts and giving staff badges that say, "Tell me what matters to you," among other options. Find more ways to celebrate here.
5. "I hope that all of you will have the opportunity to go out and ask a patient, 'What matters to you?'" said Ms. Bisognano in a recent YouTube video. "What you'll find is that what matters deeply to people often is different from what we might clinically diagnose them, but it expands our view, our sense of what is really important in these peoples' lives,"
Find more information from IHI on the importance of asking "What matters to you?" here.