An extensive body of literature advocating a "patient-centered" approach to medical care has emerged over the past three decades. This approach is now a mainstream trend in healthcare. Despite its popularity, there remains little consensus regarding the content or definition of patient-centered care. Various quantitative and qualitative research studies have extracted core meanings from "doctor-patient relationship" perspectives and investigated the relationships of these meanings with patient satisfaction, compliance with health promoting behavior, and health status. Mead and Bower's review of the conceptual and empirical literature represented the first attempt to develop a model of the doctor-patient relationship that considered the multiple aspects embraced by the "patient-centered" approach. However, any interpretation of the "patient-centered" concept that fails to consider the perspective of nursing is likely incomplete, as patient-centered care is the essence of nursing. This paper reviewed the concept of "patient-centered care", conducted a systematic review of randomized control trials to explore the effectiveness of patient-centered care, and integrated nursing-related studies that focused on patient-centered care. Our search covered articles published through the end of February 2011 in the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, JBI, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Pubmed, ProQuest, PsycInfo, and CEPS, with 13 relevant articles identified. The majority of trials addressed by these studies demonstrated a positive "patient-centered care" effect on self-care knowledge and skills but a limited/insignificant effect on disease improvement. The reviewed studies used traditional definitions of "patient-centered care" that were inconsistent with the concepts defined by Mead and Bower. Heterogeneities exist between reviewed studies and the lack of related research in Taiwan. We thus integrated outcome indicators related to "patient-centered care". This study may be referenced by nursing research and clinical care professionals responsible to improve and integrate medical care quality.