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The Potential of Crowdsourcing to Improve Patient-Centered Care

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Abstract

Crowdsourcing (CS) is the outsourcing of a problem or task to a crowd. Although patient-centered care (PCC) may aim to be tailored to an individual’s needs, the uses of CS for generating ideas, identifying values, solving problems, facilitating research, and educating an audience represent powerful roles that can shape both allocation of shared resources and delivery of personalized care and treatment. CS can often be conducted quickly and at relatively low cost. Pitfalls include bias, risks of research ethics, inadequate quality of data, inadequate metrics, and observer-expectancy effect. Health professionals and consumers in the US should increase their attention to CS for the benefit of PCC. Patients’ participation in CS to shape health policy and decisions is one way to pursue PCC itself and may help to improve clinical outcomes through a better understanding of patients’ perspectives. CS should especially be used to traverse the quality-cost curve, or decrease costs while preserving or improving quality of care.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported here was supported by the Regenstrief Institute, Inc., the Indiana University School of Medicine, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Health Services Research and Development Service CIN 13-416. Dr. Weiner is Chief of Health Services Research and Development at the Richard L. Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Indianapolis, IN, USA. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research, Regenstrief Institute, Inc., 1050 Wishard Boulevard, 5th floor, Indianapolis, IN, 46202-2872, USA

    Michael Weiner

  2. Department of Veterans Affairs, Center for Health Information and Communication, Veterans Health Administration, Health Services Research and Development Service CIN 13-416, Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Michael Weiner

  3. Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Michael Weiner

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  1. Michael Weiner
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Correspondence to Michael Weiner.

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Weiner, M. The Potential of Crowdsourcing to Improve Patient-Centered Care. Patient 7, 123–127 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-014-0051-6

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