Profiling Patients' Healthcare Needs to Support Integrated, Person-Centered Models for Long-Term Disease Management (Profile): Research Design.

Background: This article presents the design of PROFILe, a study investigating which (bio)medical and non-(bio)medical patient characteristics should guide more tailored chronic care. Based on this insight, the project aims to develop and validate 'patient profiles' that can be used in practice to determine optimal treatment strategies for subgroups of chronically ill with similar healthcare needs and preferences.

Methods/design: PROFILe is a practice-based research comprising four phases.