Visual Snapshot
Person-Centered Care Context Wheel
This visual introduces the Person-Centered Care Context Wheel, a framework for understanding the information that helps providers see the whole person. It organizes information into three interconnected domains—Patient Expertise, Daily Lived Experience, and Environmental and Structural Concerns—illustrating how factors beyond the medical record influence healthcare decisions.
Primary audience: Healthcare professionals, healthcare leaders, educators, and students implementing or learning about person-centered care.
Additional audiences: Patients and families, caregivers, researchers, patient advocates, healthcare organizations, and anyone seeking a practical framework for understanding the factors that influence healthcare decisions.
Topics Covered
- How the Context Wheel organizes person-centered information into three interconnected domains: Patient Expertise, Daily Lived Experience, and Environmental and Structural Concerns.
- Why effective healthcare decisions require understanding information that extends beyond the medical record.
- What patient expertise includes—goals, priorities, preferences, and experienced symptoms that only the person knows about themselves.
- How daily lived experiences such as emotional wellbeing, sleep, finances, and family responsibilities influence health and treatment decisions.
- How environmental and structural factors such as transportation, food availability, policies, and weather shape whether a care plan works in real life.
- How seeing the whole person helps providers deliver care that better reflects real-world circumstances.
Why This Resource Matters
Healthcare decisions often rely primarily on clinical information while overlooking the personal, everyday, and environmental factors that influence whether a care plan will work in real life. The Context Wheel provides a framework for organizing this information so providers can better understand the whole person.
What's Inside
- Patient Expertise (Goals, Priorities, Preferences, Experienced Symptoms)
- Daily Lived Experience (Emotional Wellbeing, Daily Activities, Sleep, Assistive Devices, Family & Relationships, Pain & Side Effects, Finances, Energy)
- Environmental and Structural Concerns (Food Availability, Transportation, Innovative Technologies, Policies & Systems, Snow/Wind/Ice, Terrain, School, Work)
Download the Resource
Formatted PDF
Includes graphics and layout.
Download PDF of Person-Centered Care Context Wheel (PDF, opens in a new tab)Continue Learning
Keep exploring with another resource from the Center for Person-Centered Care.
Clinical Practice and Education Resource
Person-Centered Care: Helping Clinical Expertise Work Better for Everyone
See how the information represented in the Wheel can be incorporated into realistic, practical, and achievable care plans.
Explore ResourceUse the Person-Centered Care Context Wheel to better understand the factors that shape a person's life and make healthcare decisions that reflect the whole person.
The Health Guides, Visual Snapshots, and Clinical Practice Resources were reviewed by a physician for clinical accuracy and by other reviewers to improve readability, clarity, and ease of understanding.
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