Written by: Annie LeBlanc, PhD, Research Fellow with the Knowledge and Encounter Research Unit at Mayo Clinic
The Minnesota Shared Decision Making Collaborative hosted, in collaboration with Health Partners, a one-day conference on Optimizing Shared Decision Making in Health Care. Their effort to gather healthcare providers, patients and policy makers interested in Shared Decision Making was well received as there were around 70 attendees.
Internationally recognized speakers and local experts shared their experience on Shared Decision Making and its implementation in practices and then engaged the audience in discussion around the place and future of Shared Decision Making in Minnesota’s communities.
Their take home message:
Practice: Make Shared Decision Making a habit by practicing everyday;
Facilitate: Facilitate Shared Decision Making by (i) making explicit the decision to be made, (ii) providing balanced information about options, (iii) asking patients what matters most.
Process: The implementation of Shared Decision Making, facilitated by patient Decision aids, in both primary and specialty may be at least a partial solution to the problems of poor decision quality and unwanted practice variation in the United States.
Succeed. A daily, communitiy-wide effort is our best chance to make Shared Decision Making a National success
