Relationship-centered care: A new paradigm for population health management.

At the center of population health management services are the relationships between the patient and their care providers. The spread of relationship-centered care has resulted from the need to develop and nurture these relationships. As a model of coordinated and team-based care, relationship-based care is able to strengthen population health management. This paper explores why relationship-centered care is fundamental to population health management, describes compatibilities with patient-centered care and discusses examples of early applications of this paradigm. Using our experience in a population health management organization, we describe applications and lessons learned using this paradigm.