Trailblazing Person‐Centred Care

Lessons From a Hospital Cluster‐Wide Retreat to Co‐Design Approaches to Person‐Centred Care in Singapore

Bibliographic Data

ID19508475
AuthorsXiankun Meng (0009-0009-6860-3768, SingHealth, corresponding author), Amanda Wei Li Tan (SingHealth), Samantha Shi Man Koh (SingHealth), Shanice Shi Hui Ng (SingHealth), Balkhis Puteh (Singapore Immunology Network), Chien Earn Lee (SingHealth), Esther Li Ping Lim (0000-0003-0208-5872, Singapore General Hospital), Luke Sher Guan Low (Sengkang General Hospital), Stephanie Swee Hong Teo (SingHealth), Andy Gim Hong Sim (SingHealth, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume29
Issue2
Pagese70594-e70594
Publication date2026-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHealth Expectations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-6513 • E-ISSN: 1369-7625
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/hex.70594
PMID42033139
OpenAlexW7155641489
LanguageEN
References cited31

INTRODUCTION: Person-centred care (PCC) is globally recognised as essential for quality healthcare, yet implementation remains inconsistent in Singapore due to hierarchical structures, time constraints, and fragmented understanding. SingHealth, Singapore's largest public healthcare cluster, initiated a retreat to co-design a unified approach to PCC across its institutions. OBJECTIVES: The retreat aimed to (1) align stakeholders on PCC's importance; (2) co-develop a locally tailored PCC definition; (3) advance PCC through five workstreams (user experience, research, education, service innovation, strategic partnerships); and (4) provide experiential co-design learning. METHODS: This qualitative case study employed reflexive thematic analysis to analyse data from a retreat designed using Goffman's frame analysis. The retreat engaged 42 healthcare practitioners, 26 senior management, and 13 patient/caregiver experience experts in a three-phase co-design process. 1. Pre-design: Strategic stakeholder invitation and pre-reading to align perspectives. 2. Generative phase: Creative methods ('Frozen' metaphors, flip cube exercises and patient videos) to explore PCC's 'what' and 'why', followed by live visual scribing, discussion and presentation. 3. Evaluative phase: Visioning exercises, debates on patient autonomy, and development of an implementation matrix. RESULTS: Four key themes emerged:. 1. Shared responsibility between patients and providers. 2. Communication skills as foundational to PCC. 3. Integration of PCC into systems and culture. 4. Actionable steps, including patient-reported experience measures and new models of care. Tangible outputs included a shared vision- 'Empowering individuals. Everyone matters' and a five-level implementation matrix operationalising PCC at institutional, departmental, and patient-provider levels. CONCLUSION: The retreat successfully fostered stakeholder alignment and co-designed actionable strategies for PCC. The co-design process successfully revealed nuanced tensions around shared responsibility while generating implementable strategies. This model demonstrates how structured stakeholder engagement can advance PCC in hierarchical healthcare systems. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Experience experts (patients and caregivers), constituting 16% of retreat participants, were strategically recruited from established networks. They actively co-designed the PCC definition, participated in world café discussions, informed implementation strategies across five workstreams, co-created the vision statement and validated the final implementation matrix. Their lived experiences critically shaped key themes of this event. One experience expert co-authored this manuscript, reflecting sustained partnership

Health care · Key (lock) · MEDLINE · Patient experience · Qualitative research · Statement (logic) · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Persona Design and Applications

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