An eight-site demonstration project has revealed some of the biggest challenges facing primary-care practices seeking to implement shared decisionmaking, according to a study in the February issue of Health Affairs.
Launched in July 2009 and led by the Boston-based Informed Medical Decisions Foundation, the demonstration project supported and followed early adopters as they planned and put in place a number of decision aids to better engage patients in their care.
The practices faced numerous obstacles, including inadequate clinical information systems that lacked the ability to identify which patients should receive decision aids or the ability to capture whether patients' views were considered in subsequent care, according to the study, authored by researchers from the foundation and RAND Corp., and based on interviews with demonstration participants.