AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange Focuses on Using Decision Aids in Shared Decisionmaking

The latest issue of AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange features two programs that promote shared decisionmaking through the use of decision aids. One of the featured profiles describes legislative efforts in Washington state to promote the routine use of shared decisionmaking, in which patients and physicians jointly decide on the best course of action based on available evidence and patient preferences and values. These laws are designed to reduce variations in care and improve quality by mandating implementation of a multisite demonstration project, recognizing use of decision aids as evidence of informed consent in malpractice cases, and creating a governor-appointed learning collaborative to identify variations in care delivery and evidence-based practices (including shared decisionmaking) for reducing such variations. The state has also proposed legislation to establish a certification process for shared decisionmaking tools. The demonstration project has identified success factors for and barriers to its routine use, and the learning collaborative has begun to establish shared decisionmaking as an evidence-based practice for reducing variations in care. Select to access more innovation profiles, tools, and resources related to shared decisionmaking and the use of patient decision aids on the Innovations Exchange website, which contains more than 800 searchable innovations and 1,525 quality tools.