AP/Contra Costa Times Examines Trend To Provide Patients With More Detailed, Unbiased Information About Treatment
The AP/Contra Costa Times on Monday examined the "small but growing movement to get unbiased reports of the pros and cons of different tests and treatments into patients' hands before they fall back on, 'Doc, just tell me what you'd choose.'" According to the AP/Times, "patients often are ill-equipped to weigh increasingly complex medical options," but studies suggest that patients who receive more details about potential treatments and procedures "frequently choose more conservative therapy than their doctors initially recommend."
Medical experts at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire have helped establish a concept they call shared decision-making that goes "a step beyond the brief patient education that doctors are required to provide," the AP/Times reports. Some medical groups also are creating "what they call decision aids, plain-English guides that give equal voice to the advantages and disadvantages of options and include real patients explaining why they chose" different courses of treatment, according to the AP/Times. The guides are produced in video or pamphlet form with the goal of providing a patient with information before a physician appointment so they can ask better questions.
According to the AP/Times, Washington state has approved a law that encourages the trend, and further attention could be drawn to it as efforts are discussed to overhaul the U.S. health care system. However, the AP/Times reports, "Patient choice is only one part of good health care; a separate problem is how often doctors fail to offer proven care, such as medications that improve survival after a heart attack" (AP/Contra Costa Times, 2/9).
