Welcoming as a tool of inclusive health care practices

Abstract

This paper looks at “welcoming” as an important marker of health services, relating it with the inversion of clinical care’s technical-service oriented model, and focuses on what is already known about this subject. The bibliographic study is based on approaches that link “welcoming” to human relations and the changing structure of the process of health care service. “Welcoming”, as we see in the data, is a strategy for: reorganization of health care services, a change in the work focus from disease to patient, underlining the importance of multi-professional teamwork, a guarantee of universal access to health services, a resolution of problems or the follow-up of patient needs, a promotion of “humanized” care, and a stimulus in the training of professional staff in taking a welcoming attitude. The relationship between staff and client, the establishment of ties, and the credibility and confidence between them are, apparently, consequences of a welcoming posture. Concluding this study is an inference that “humanized” and quality health care is the responsibility of the whole multidisciplinary team and it is guaranteed by welcoming practices, as a result of care provided before, during and after consultation.