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SHARED DECISION MAKING:
ENABLING PATIENTS, NOT “CUSTOMERS”
By Dylan Chadwick, Staff Writer for Physicians Office Resource
To chart the development of modern health care is really to chart
the reconfiguration of its constituent players and how their roles
have evolved over the last decade (or century). In other words,
what words like “doctor” and “patient” may have connoted in the
past, drastically differ from those connotations now. Rockwell-
esque visions of rosy-cheeked doctors dispensing medicine (and a
pocket full of tongue depressors) upon passive patients have given
way to an entirely new model...and that’s a good thing.
In recent years, the concept of “shared decision making”
in health care often comes up in discussions of modernizing
health care. Essentially Shared Decision Making (SDM)
encourages clinicians and patients to communicate with one
another using the best available evidence when making a
treatment decision. The approach respects patient autonomy,
along with certain legal and ethical requirements, while also
giving patients the support they need to deliberate the pros
and cons of their various options. This up-ends old scenarios
of physicians dumping information on the patient willy-nilly,
and optimistically carves out a slot for the patient directly in
the decision-making process.
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It’s a concept not only indicative of an evolving health care
model, but also of the power of the “consumer” generally.
Nowadays, consumers have more power and influence than
they’ve ever had. They have access to information and that's not
just health and nutrition information. They can comparison
shop everything from their kid’s preschool to who will remove
their inflamed appendix. They can post recommendations of
their experiences, glean insider info from their social media
followers and then once it's all over, they can literally rate and
review their experience. So, with developments like this, it's
really no wonder that terms like "health care consumer"
abound. Now, if a term like “health care consumer” troubles
you, consider Tanya Feke, MD’s take on the word: “Patients
consume health care. Literally, they ingest medication, but they
also utilize services from lab tests, imaging, consultations to
procedures.” (This Is Why Patients Cannot Be Customers).
So we’re confident that in order for health care to continue at
a sustainable clip, patients need to be in on the decision making
process. We’re even comfortable making them co-decision
makers. Is it really right to call them “customers” though?
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