We could be even more comprehensive and consider the term citizen, that is, one that can potentially be seen in the role of each of these qualities, client, patient, patient, user or consumer, alone or in combination.
At the level of the concept I explain, the most accepted term in Portuguese gives per ‘cliente’ and in English per customer.
Nowadays, the economy of service delivery, including healthcare, has evolved into an experience aspect, which refers to all the interactions that a customer has with an organization, a brand, a company, in the provision of a service: the Customer Experience.
You can read the full article, in Portuguese or English, in the Portuguese monthly edition of Dentistry magazine:
Open the English version of the article (pdf).
Open the Portuguese version of the article (pdf).
Orlando Monteiro da Silva 