Shared decision making - the pinnacle of patient-centered care

Another soft paper for you to mull over.

Barry & Edgman-Levitan. Shared Decision Making — The Pinnacle of Patient-Centered Care. N Engl J Med 2012; 366:780-781. March 1, 2012.

"Caring and compassion were once often the only “treatment” available to clinicians. Over time, advances in medical science have provided new options that, although often improving outcomes, have inadvertently distanced physicians from their patients. The result is a health care environment in which patients and their families are often excluded from important discussions and left feeling in the dark about how their problems are being managed and how to navigate the overwhelming array of diagnostic and treatment options available to them......"


Please let us know what you think of the paper and the concepts in the paper.

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