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Author Archives: Michael J. Barry, MD
The President’s Corner: May 2013
Shared decision making to inform and involve patients in their health care decisions is gaining great momentum as a strategy to improve the quality and value of health care. However, making patient participation in decisions the rule, and not the exception, is challenging. Now is the time to convene patient advocates, providers, health care systems, policy makers and insurers to engage in a critical discussion about how to address this challenge and make it easier to do the right thing by informing and involving patients when it matters most — when a decision is looming. Continue reading
Shared Decision Making Month Comes to a Close: A Personal Thank You to All Those Who Participated
I’d like to start by thanking everyone who has contributed to Shared Decision Making (SDM) Month. We’ve been overwhelmed by the support of this initiative. During the month of March we have heard from roughly 50 contributors representing a variety of perspectives on how fostering a health care system where shared decision making is the norm, is critical. We have also heard time and again that shared decision making is essential to providing patients with the high-quality care that patients deserve. However, contributors have also shown that the complex and fragmented nature of health care systems can make it difficult to take shared decision making theory and turn it into meaningful and sustainable everyday practice. Continue reading
The President’s Corner: January/February 2013
The latest edition of Health Affairs focuses on a topic very near and dear to our hearts, patient engagement. Throughout the history of the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation, we have been dedicated to studying the components of patient engagement and how it affects the health care industry. Research shows that when patients are actively engaged in their care, they can experience better health outcomes, at lower costs. It gives me great pleasure to recognize the Foundation team members who are co-authors on publications in this edition of Health Affairs: New Era of Patient Engagement. Continue reading
The President’s Corner: December 2012
This year has been an extremely busy one for our team at the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation. As we mentioned in February when we launched our brand refresh, our look may have changed but our commitment to amplifying the patient’s voice in medical decisions has not. And I believe that is evident in what we’ve accomplished this year. So I’d like to take a moment to highlight just a few of our accomplishments in 2012 and what we have to look forward to in 2013. Continue reading
The Election Results are in and Shared Decision Making is here to Stay
President Obama’s re-election now makes it all but certain that implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will progress. With a clearer picture of the health care landscape ahead of us, the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation and our colleagues will continue to pursue the opportunities laid out in the ACA to foster nation-wide implementation of shared decision making (SDM). I’d like to point out two key organizations established through the ACA that we hope to work closely with over the coming years. The first being the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), which cultivates health care transformation by finding new ways to pay for and deliver better care and better health at lower costs. Continue reading
Posted in Current News
Tagged ACA, CMMI, High-Value Healthcare Collaborative, HVHC, PCORI, shared decision making
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The President’s Corner: October 2012
Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a great deal of time engaging in thoughtful discussions about shared decision making (SDM) in a number of forums around the world. My travels began on the other side of the globe at the Australian Disease Management Association’s 8th Annual National Conference. This year’s theme was “Working Towards Integrated Chronic Disease Management”; topics of discussion included SDM, health literacy, evaluation, quality and safety, and consumer engagement. I had the opportunity to be part of a panel highlighting the quality imperative for involving patients in health care decisions though a SDM process. Closer to home, I was invited to participate in Kaiser Permanente’s Decision Making Summit, “Integrating Shared Decision Making Across the Continuum of Care.” Participants discussed how SDM could be implemented in different areas of care from prevention, to diagnosis and treatment, to palliative care. And most recently, I found myself in sunny Arizona at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM). This event is always a treat for me, as it is an opportunity to see the results of the hard work of many of our colleagues. Continue reading
Posted in Current News, President's Corner
Tagged ADMA, Michael J. Barry, shared decision making, SMDM
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The President’s Corner: September 2012
This month, a much anticipated study was published in Health Affairs that addresses something we are often asked at the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation: What are the effects of decision aids on utilization rates and medical costs? Researchers from Group Health Cooperative found that when decisions aids were used for patients making a decision about whether or not to have elective knee or hip replacement surgeries, there was a significant drop in surgical procedures as more patients opted for more conservative, less costly treatment options. Continue reading
Foundation’s Response to USPSTF Final PSA Testing Recommendation
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) published their final recommendation on PSA testing in an Annals of Internal Medicine article this week. The panel advises against PSA-based prostate cancer screening for men of all ages. The rationale for this recommendation is based on the panel’s moderate certainty that the potential harms outweigh the benefits for all age groups. Based on clinical evidence from two large randomized trials evaluated by the panel, at most 1 out of 1,000 men screened will avoid dying from prostate cancer over 10 years, while many more men will be left with permanent disabilities from their treatment, such as incontinence (18 in 1,000) or impotence (29 in 1,000). Continue reading
