Testing a Vision for People-Centered Care: Insights from the PMAC Side Meeting

At the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) in January 2026, the Lancet Global Health Commission on People-Centered Care (PCC) for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)* held an official side meeting with a clear purpose: to test whether its emerging definition and operational framework for people-centered care truly resonate lived experience, implementation insight, and policy translation across diverse contexts.

Positioned within the Commission’s formative “Discovery Phase,” the session marked the first in a planned series of participatory “Discussion Labs” designed not as consultation exercises, but as active sites of evidence generation. While shaped by the Asia-Pacific context, the meeting attracted a global, multi-sectoral audience and produced insights intended to inform people-centered care efforts across regions and income settings. Download the full event report by clicking on the link below.

From Framework to Lived Reality

The session opened with a plenary presentation introducing the Commission’s draft definition and framework for people-centered care. Participants responded with strong affirmation, describing the framework as a “North Star” for health systems—particularly valuing its emphasis on emotionally responsive, empowering, and dignified care. These elements were seen as distinguishing the framework from more system- or disease-centered approaches that dominate existing models.

At the same time, participants challenged the Commission to go further. Academic contributors highlighted the need to better acknowledge broader contextual forces—such as climate vulnerability, environmental degradation, and conflict—that shape people’s experience of care and the capacity of health systems to respond. Equity considerations featured prominently, with civil society representatives emphasizing that people-centered care must meaningfully apply to migrants, refugees, undocumented populations, and others often excluded from formal systems.

Components reviewed

People-Centered Care in Practice

A panel of speakers from community advocacy, clinical care, the private sector, and health system reform illustrated how people-centered care is experienced and enacted across settings.

Harry Prabowo of the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV shared how stigma and disempowering clinical encounters delayed his engagement with care, while later experiences grounded in trust, shared decision-making, and emotional affirmation transformed his relationship with the health system. His story powerfully illustrated how relational quality shapes continuity of care and wellbeing.

From a provider perspective, Dr. Wipaporn Natalie Songtaweesin of the Chula Clinic reflected on the tension between aspiration and feasibility. She described how framing PCC as a guiding direction rather than a checklist allowed clinicians to pursue holistic, life-course-oriented care—beginning consultations with questions about young people’s lives, not just their diagnoses, and embedding co-design through a youth advisory board.

Logan Caragata of Roche shared a story from a colleague in Malaysia who had been deeply affected by meeting a woman at a market who had forgone breast cancer care — not because treatment was unavailable, but because she could not afford the indirect costs associated with accessing it, including lost wages, travel, and time away from family responsibilities.

In response to these realities, Roche partnered with the Government of Malaysia to pilot the decentralization of breast cancer treatment, including intravenous and subcutaneous chemotherapy, by training nurses in district facilities closer to where people live. He noted that the government has since expanded the model for breast cancer and is extending it to colorectal cancer, illustrating how people-centered service delivery innovations can be embedded within mainstream systems when they align with policy priorities and system constraints.

Finally, Diah Satyani Saminarsih of CISDI situated people-centered care within the broader challenges of implementing primary health care reform in Indonesia. Her reflections underscored that institutionalizing people-centered care requires system-level reform—addressing workforce distribution, governance, and meaningful community engagement, not just service delivery tweaks.

What Enables—or Undermines—People-Centered Care?

Following the panel, participants engaged in facilitated discussion labs focused on lived experience, implementation, and policy translation.

Across discussions, stigma, discrimination, and institutional bias emerged as central barriers to people-centered care. Participants emphasized the importance of being treated as a person in context—spoken to directly, communicated with clearly, and supported emotionally. Time, continuity of relationships, and coordinated teams were repeatedly cited as essential, alongside honest communication about system limitations.

From an implementation perspective, participants stressed that PCC is enabled by team-based care, task-sharing, and strong roles for community-based workers who provide navigation, accompaniment, and trust-building. Physical space and infrastructure—often overlooked—were highlighted as critical determinants of dignity and safety. Technology was seen as a potential enabler when it frees up time and strengthens continuity, but a risk when it displaces human connection.

Policy-focused discussions emphasized that there is no single model of people-centered care. Instead, PCC must be adapted to context—whether through adolescent-friendly services, community-owned clinics, or decentralized delivery models. Health workforce policy emerged as a central lever, alongside financing, governance, and measurement systems that reward relational, longitudinal care rather than narrow outputs.

From Engagement to Action

Overall, the PMAC side meeting strongly affirmed the Commission’s emerging framework while sharpening priorities for refinement. Participants called for clearer, more accessible language; stronger attention to marginalized populations; and explicit recognition of broader contextual conditions shaping care.

Equally important, the session demonstrated the value of participatory engagement. The meeting set a precedent for future regional discussion labs and reinforced the Commission’s commitment to grounding global guidance in lived experience and implementation reality.

As the Commission moves forward, insights from PMAC will directly inform refinement of the definition and framework, research priorities on implementation and policy translation, and ongoing engagement with participants—closing the accountability loop that people-centered care itself demands. 

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Download the full report by clicking on the link below.

* This Commission is generously supported by Gates Foundation, Novartis Global Health, China Medical Board, and Roche.