Authored by several leaders of the Picker/Commonwealth Program for Patient-Centered Care, this book demonstrates the broad impact of the program. The authors discuss the key tenets of patient-centered care, drawing on empirical research, theory, and results of many surveys of patients, providers, and administrators. The authors provide many practical suggestions, a number of which have been adopted since the book's first publication in 1993. Examples include giving patients access to their medical records, giving them “written and/or visual information identifying members of the clinical team," and offering “culturally sensitive educational materials tailored to specific ethnic groups.”