Interprofessional education about shared decision making for patients in primary care settings

Abstract

With an increasingly complex array of interventions facing healthcare professionals and patients, coupled with a potentially diverse number of professionals operating within the primary care team, the adoption of shared decision making (SDM) − with or without patients’ decision aids − in an interprofessional manner is essential to ensure the highest quality of care for patients. In this article, we propose a framework for interprofessional education about SDM targeted to primary care settings. Five areas of knowledge and skills were agreed to be essential for all relevant stakeholders for interprofessional education in SDM to be successful: understanding the concept of SDM; acquiring relevant communication skills to facilitate SDM; understanding interprofessional sensitivities; understanding the roles of different professions within the relevant primary care group; and acquiring relevant skills to implement SDM. We suggest a series of teaching methods for the aforementioned areas, using principles from adult learning.

Keywords::

• Decision support
• interprofessional education
• primary care
• shared decision making

Acknowledgements

A report entitled ‘Interprofessional education about patient decision support in primary care’ was presented at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice’s 2008 Summer Institute on Informed Patient Choice. Funding for the conference was made possible in part by 1R13HS017378-01 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and in part by the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making (FIMDM).

Declaration of interest

The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.