Metrics of Patient, Public, Consumer, and Community Engagement in Healthcare Systems: How Should We Define Engagement, What Are We Measuring, and Does It Matter for Patient Care? Comment on “Metrics and Evaluation Tools for Patient Engagement in Healthcare Organization- and System-Level Decision-Making: A Systematic Review”

In a rigorous systematic review, Dukhanin and colleagues categorize metrics and evaluative tools of the engagement of patient, public, consumer, and community in decision-making in healthcare institutions and systems. The review itself is ably done and the categorizations lead to a useful understanding of the necessary elements of engagement, and a suite of measures relevant to implementing engagement in systems. Nevertheless, the question remains whether the engagement of patient representatives in institutional or systemic deliberations will lead to improved clinical outcomes or increased engagement of individual patients themselves in care. Attention to the conceptual foundations of patient engagement would help make this systematic review relevant to the clinical care of patients.