Heart of patient-centred care is at home

Q: What is the clinical evidence from this study?

Study design: Editorial. Intervention: Home visits.

Q: What does this research mean for the field?

Home visits by family physicians in Canada have declined substantially over the past several decades and now represent a very small portion of family medicine practice. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

Sarah Newbery

doi:10.46747/cfp.7209527

September 1, 2026Canadian Family PhysicianOpen Access

Heart of patient-centred care is at home

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Key result

Home visits by family physicians provide essential context, continuity, and comprehensiveness to patient care, and should be better supported and sustained in the health care system.

Key Points

To examine the decline of home visits in family medicine and highlight their central importance for comprehensive, continuous, and context-informed patient-centred care.
Narrative reflection and clinical analysis examining Ian McWhinney's core principles of family medicine through 29 years of rural generalist practice in Ontario, Canada.
Conceptual evaluation of family medicine's core components—comprehensiveness, continuity, and context—in relation to home-based care and digital health technologies.
Home visits provide crucial clinical and environmental context, identifying unobserved physical hazards, social isolation, and informal caregiver networks.
Direct home encounters promote relationship reciprocity between patients and physicians, providing moments of professional joy that counteract clinical burnout.
Sustaining in-person home visits alongside digital tools requires formal health-system integration, updated physician compensation models, and targeted learner training.

PICO

I

Intervention / Comparator

Home visits

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Implication

Home visits by family physicians provide essential context, continuity, and comprehensiveness to patient care, and should be better supported in the health care system.

Abstract

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Cite This Study

Sarah Newbery (2026) reported an editorial. Home visits was evaluated. Home visits by family physicians provide essential context, continuity, and comprehensiveness to patient care, and should be better supported and sustained in the health care system.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6aa7afef79e9260bc85aac79 https://doi.org/10.46747/cfp.7209527

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Heart of patient-centred care is at home

Key Points

PICO

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Implication

Abstract

Discussion

Cite This Study

Heart of patient-centred care is at home

Key Points

PICO

Ask about this paper

Implication

Abstract

Discussion

Cite This Study

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