Health care providers at our demonstration sites describe the role of patient decision aids in the process of shared decision making.
Putting Shared Decision Making in Practice
The Informed Medical Decisions Foundation is currently studying how to best integrate shared decision making (SDM) and the use of patient decision aids into clinical practice.
Our SDM demonstration sites are essential to understanding the most effective method for implementation. Testing of decision aid use under controlled laboratory conditions can supply some important information about use. However, only through active implementation of SDM and decision aids at health care sites can we provide practical information on how best to support shared decision making in real-world clinical settings.
In addition to developing patient decision aids, our team is working on developing provider tools to help clinicians seamlessly integrate shared decision making into day-to-day practice.
Provider Testimonials
Benefits of Shared Decision Making
“What makes me really happy is that my patient and I shared in this process. There wasn’t a rush to judgement, that we could take away the fear, that we could answer the questions, so I knew when he went to surgery he felt really good about his decision.”
- Provider who participates in shared decision making“To make the best recommendation we’re going to have to take the advice of another expert, and that’s the patient themselves. They do know what is really important to them, what risks they can tolerate, what kinds of uncertainty they can tolerate, what kind of symptoms they can tolerate; and those are the things I want to know.”
-Provider who participates in shared decision making
