• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Mighty Casey Media: Comedy Health Analyst

Stop screaming. Laughing hurts less.

  • Home
  • Work With Me
    • Rent My Brain
    • Got content?
    • Speaking
    • Presentation Coaching
    • Story Bank
    • Quick Start
  • My Story
  • My Work
    • Portfolio
    • Cancer for Christmas
  • Blog
  • Contact

epatients

Shared decision making, please

February 24, 2015 by Mighty Casey 2 Comments

You’ve heard me before (here, here, and here for a start) on the subject of shared decision making (SDM). Short version: I’m an advocate for partnership in medical care. Partnership that includes the values, outcome goals, and cost considerations of THE. PATIENT. Which means shared decision making.

My buddies over at Software Advice have just published the results of a survey* they did in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic’s Knowledge and Evaluation Research (KER) Unit that took a deep dive into what’s happening in the real world with SDM, and what patients who are exposed to the process think of it.

The key findings:

  1. A majority of patients (68 percent) say they would prefer to make collaborative decisions about treatment options with their healthcare provider.
  2. Forty percent of patients say they have participated in SDM before, and 21 percent have done so within the past year.
  3. Most patients surveyed say that SDM improves their satisfaction (89 percent) and makes them feel more involved in the care they receive (87 percent).
  4. Nearly half (41 percent) of patients report that they would be “much more likely” to adhere to a treatment plan developed using SDM.
  5. 47 percent of patients would be “extremely” or “very likely” to switch to a provider whose practice offers SDM.

If you click through to the full article in the 2nd graf, you’ll see a number of graphs and charts reporting on patients’ responses to questions about provider choice and treatment protocol adherence – one of my least favorite words, but it’s a favorite of pharma and healthcare system peeps, so there it is. The pie chart that stood out for me was this one:

Likelihood to Switch to SDM Provider

11-likelihood-switch

 

For the math-challenged, 80% of the patients surveyed were moderately, very, or extremely likely to switch to a healthcare provider who practices SDM. Physicians and other clinicians who interact with patients at the point of care need to digest this: fully informing patients of the treatment options available to them, and working with patients to craft a treatment plan TOGETHER, is a survival strategy for the clinician. Ignore SDM principles at the peril of your continued professional relevance.

This is particularly timely given my upcoming attendance at the Lown Institute’s Road to RightCare: Engage, Organize, Transform conference in San Diego March 8 through March 11. I’ll be hearing from researchers, clinical teams, patient voices, and policy wonks on how to create a right-care healthcare system whose bedrock is shared decision making.

Also, the recent JAMA Oncology articles on the myth of the demanding patient, which myth has formed some of the institutional-side (translation: dinosaur providers) pushback against the wide adoption of patient input on their treatment (in other words: SDM) in the U.S. and elsewhere, are starting to knock down the walls that have kept SDM from becoming the standard medical practice model it should be.

“Nothing about me, without me” is a rallying cry of the participatory medicine movement. Shared decision making is, I believe, part of an overall civil rights issue, since patients who aren’t asked their goals and preferences for treatment are being given care that isn’t their choice. A real hurdle for SDM is going to be the inevitable end-of-life conversation – life is, after all, 100% fatal – that we all have to have, unless we die suddenly in a plane crash or car wreck.

Where are you on the SDM spectrum? Does your doctor talk you through all your options, or just write you a prescription or send you for a scan? “Shut up and do as I say” medicine needs to be consigned to the scrapheap of history. Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts in the comments.

*Source: Practice Management systems consultancy Software Advice

Filed Under: Healthcare, Media commentary, Social media, Storytelling, Technology Tagged With: #epatient, e-patients, epatients, health care, health care reform, Healthcare, healthcare costs, Knowledge and Evaluation Research Unit, Lown Institute, Mayo Clinic, mighty casey media, participatory medicine, RightCare, shared decision making, Social media, softwareadvice.com, technology

Before Footer

Subscribe

Health + Science snark delivered, fresh to your inbox!

Footer

My QR Code

My QR Code

Explore

  • Home
  • Activate the Mighty Mouth
  • Cancer for Christmas
  • Da Blog
  • Healthcare Is HILARIOUS!
  • My Story
  • Portfolio

Work With Me

  • Presentation Coaching
  • Right Care Alliance
  • Rent My Brain
  • Got content?
  • Story Bank
  • Quick Start
  • Speaking

Connect

Connect
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Mighty Casey Media © 2020

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

logo on white background with mighty casey media in block letters
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to provide the best user experience possible.Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Settings are yours to control.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Cookie Policy

More information about our Cookie Policy