Developing Human-Centered Care Skills in Intensive Care: A Competency-Focused Educational Framework for Patient and Family Engagement

By
Arzu Topeli
Melania Gizella Istrate
Pedro Póvoa
October 7, 2026

Intensive Care Medicine

Overview

The article presents human-centred intensive care as a set of professional competencies that require deliberate education, assessment, and ongoing development. It describes competency-based curricula, simulation, interprofessional learning, and digital education as approaches to developing communication, teamwork, ethical judgement, and patient- and family-engagement skills.

Background

Intensive care combines advanced monitoring and organ support with circumstances that can involve fear, pain, communication barriers, and reduced autonomy for patients, as well as uncertainty and emotional distress for families. Clinicians also work amid cognitive load, ethical complexity, and emotional burden. The article argues that technology and goodwill alone do not ensure human-centred care; competencies such as empathy, communication, shared decision-making, and collaboration must be developed through education. It identifies competency-based education, including the CoBaTrICE framework, as a way to make these behaviours explicit learning and practice expectations.

Data Highlights

The supplied article excerpt contains no numerical trial results. The related FICUS cluster randomized clinical trial enrolled 885 family members across 16 ICUs; the nurse-led, interprofessional family-support intervention was associated with mean FS-ICU scores of 81.78 versus 79.39 out of 100, a statistically significant difference. The web research context also reports that the trial improved quality of communication and cognitive and emotional support.

Key Findings

Human-centred ICU care includes competencies beyond clinical expertise, including empathy, emotional self-regulation, ethical judgement, reflective learning, collaborative decision-making, and teamwork.
Competency-based curricula define observable behaviours and learning objectives, and assess communication, teamwork, leadership, and professionalism alongside technical expertise.
Paediatric ICU research cited in the article indicates focused training may improve skills for eliciting family values and preferences, leading family meetings, communicating difficult news, and supporting end-of-life decisions.
Simulation and structured debriefing provide opportunities to practise communication, teamwork, ethical reasoning, and patient- and family-centred decisions in scenarios such as family meetings and treatment-limitation discussions.
Interprofessional education is described as supporting role understanding, communication, coordination, and collaborative decisions across the critical-care pathway.
The related FICUS cluster randomized trial enrolled 885 family members in 16 ICUs and reported higher mean FS-ICU scores with a nurse-led interprofessional family-support intervention than with usual care (81.78 vs 79.39 out of 100); the supplied context also reports improvements in communication quality and cognitive and emotional support.

Clinical Implications

The article describes communication, teamwork, ethical judgement, and family engagement as competencies to be incorporated into education and assessment, rather than treated solely as aspirational values. It identifies simulation, interprofessional learning, and digital educational tools as approaches for practising and maintaining these competencies; the supplied related trial context reports improved family satisfaction and support outcomes with a nurse-led interprofessional intervention.

Conclusion

The article frames human-centred intensive care as a professional capability that can be taught, practised, and assessed alongside technical expertise. Its proposed educational approaches aim to support consistent patient- and family-engagement behaviours in ICU practice.