Synopsis of resource:
Pediatric patients and their families may struggle to make a range of medical treatment decisions throughout their lifetime. This is particularly true of decisions with uncertain outcomes. The demand on patients and caretakers to make treatment and care decisions can be unrelenting over their lifetime. Shared Decision Making is an innovative program delivering an important best practice patient centred care clinical service. The program focuses on measuring knowledge, decisional satisfaction, decisional conflict and readiness before and after the SDM coaching intervention.
SDM is the process whereby health professionals and patients collaborate on medical decision-making with a more structured process that takes into account both the best evidence and patient values. It is structured assistance provided by a Decision Coach outside the patient’s circle of care to develop patients’ skills in deliberating about options, preparing for a consultation, & implementing change. Consults are tailored to patient’s decisional needs by a facilitator who is supportive and non-directive and aims to achieve decisions that are informed and based on patient’s values.
Key learning outcomes
- Shared decision-making is when patients and their caregivers work with health-care providers and a Decision Coach to make important choices about their care.
This process helps:
- Patients and caregivers better understand their options and the potential risks and benefits for each
- Health-care professionals better understand the patient’s and caregiver’s values, needs and concerns
Authors
Bonnie is an experienced decision coach who educates and encourages patients/caregivers to be active participants in shared decision making. This involves objective and impartial decision support from outside the patient’s circle of care, filling a unique gap that allows timely, unbiased and non-threatening decision scenario options for all patients/caregivers who are grappling with a difficult decision. Everyone benefits when patients and their caregivers are well-informed and play a primary role in deciding how to treat or manage their own health conditions.
“I believe that a well-informed patient is an empowered patient, and an empowered patient is key to a healthier future”.
