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shared decision making

Democratization of knowledge, healthcare edition

By e-patients, healthcare industry, technology

I was lucky enough to be asked to write the foreword to the 3rd edition of Shared Decision Making in Health Care: Achieving evidence-based patient choice, from Oxford University Press. Here’s the text of that forward.

We are at what appears to be a Copernican moment in healthcare, where everything that learned minds thought was true – that the sun revolved around the earth; that miasmas rising from the ground, or humours contained within the human body, caused disease; that only magical beings called doctors could understand or participate in medical care – is being disproved. Medicine stands at a crossroads unlike any other transformation point in its history. As access to information – what I call the democratization of knowledge – has become as simple as the movement of a human finger, the relationship between doctors and the people they care for has undergone a seismic shift. But like many seismic shifts, it’s happening at a level that only those tuned to pick up the signals from it can sense. That I, a patient voice whose only medical knowledge has been acquired as an autodidact with strong research skills, have been asked to write the foreword to the third edition of Shared Decision Making in Health Care is a strong indication that the earth is moving beneath our feet.

OUP Shared Decision Making 3rd Ed coverThe knowledge exchange that is the bedrock of shared decision making is creating the mutuality that has been missing in medicine, making a full partnership between doctors and the people they care for finally possible. As is made clear in many parts of this book, building literacy on both sides of the equation is a must for shared decisions – information has to be shared with people in ways they can understand, which makes solid communication skills a must for both patients and anyone in clinical practice. This is true in medical research as well, as the need to understand what people actually want from medicine becomes part of the research process. And the people who look to healthcare for their needs – which is all of humanity – must have a full voice in saying what the value is in the care they choose to receive.

Getting to that place of mutuality is still a big challenge for the healthcare system, though. The practice variation so well illustrated by the Dartmouth Atlas remains a roadblock, as does the lingering paternalism embedded within medicine itself. Co-creation of anything – from dinner to a decision about cancer treatment – requires all involved to be present, and equal, in the task at hand. That’s a particular problem for underserved or disadvantaged patient communities, and in the factory model that healthcare has become for much of the clinical side, of healthcare delivery.

So what’s a patient, or a doctor, to do? The most powerful force in healthcare system transformation is yet to be fully unleashed, but the shared decision making approach so thoroughly explored in this book could cry havoc, and unleash the dogs of full partnership. Because if people, and the medical professionals who care for them, actually form an ongoing partnership, “system transformation” will happen without the need for yet another million dollar blue ribbon panel convened in service of answering that thorny “what do patients want?” question.

Technology holds much promise for enabling and accelerating this partnership, but it also presents hazards moral and practical. How can we help someone understand their medical condition if they can’t read? How do we make informed choice a reality, and not just a radio button on an iPad screen? How can we ensure that the technology systems deployed to help us manage care don’t become our robot overlords? I see shared decision making – both science of and practice of – as the clinical pathway to resolving those questions, and to unlocking humanity’s full potential.

If that sounds like hyperbole, I invite you to envision a world where people, and the medical professionals who help them work toward their health goals, are fully engaged with each other in that work. That would create a landscape where people would feel empowered to live their lives to the fullest. Sure, chronic conditions would still exist. Cancer would still be with us. No one gets out of here alive, but being able to live to the full extent of whatever one’s gifts, and one’s time, are is a gift in and of itself. Which would in turn yield gifts in the way of productivity, creativity, and community on a global scale.

Homo medicus, meet homo sapiens. Partnership is not only possible; it’s essential if we are, as a species, to unlock our full potential. Starting with one of the most trust-imbued of human relationships – that of patient and doctor – and strengthening it through the mutuality of shared decision making, who knows what we could bring forth into the world? Let’s work together to find out.

Shared decision making, please

By e-patients, healthcare industry, media commentary, technology

You’ve heard me before 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