Shared Decision Making
One approach to decision-making in modern healthcare is Shared Decision Making. In this approach, clinicians and patients work together to weigh the risks and benefits of treatment options to decide how best to manage the patients’ medical care. Shared Decision Making using tools called “decision aids” allows the patient to review available evidence to help make decisions in the management of their health care and to assert their preferences in light of this available evidence and their personal values. Many argue this approach best respects patient autonomy as it takes into account patient perspectives and preferences. These decisions can be especially challenging when the patient is faced with difficult treatment options like in the case of ventricular assist device placement for patients with heart failure.
Active Projects
Medical Decision Making and Behavioral Economics
Medical decision making and behavioral economics are fields that study and seek to improve upon decisional processes, or in other words, how individuals make choices. In particular, behavioral economics seeks ways to improve decision-making by using principles of economics and psychology to overcome the inherent biases individuals employ in their decision-making. Our research in this area focuses on whether and how physicians should use knowledge from research on decision-making to shape people’s health care decisions and related behaviors.
Active Projects
- Ethically Responsible Choice Architecture in Medical Decision Making
- Integrating Ethics into the Science of Behavior Change: An Ethical Framework for Clinicians and Policymaker
- Dissemination and Implementation of a Patient-Centered Decision Aid for Left Ventricular Assist Device Placement
Decision-Making in the Learning Health Care System
The Learning Health Care System model aims to improve the quality and efficiency of health care by harnessing the power of data to embed research into the fabric of care delivery to enable a continuous cycle of knowledge generation and improvement. Transitioning to such a model will require tremendous changes for traditional approaches to clinical research and clinical practice. Our research focuses on the impact of this transformation upon patient and physician decision-making related to research in this new context.
Our Research Partners
The Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy continues to expand its research efforts with partnerships and support of various government and private institutions including the National Institutes for Heath, the Houston Methodist Hospital and the Houston Methodist Research Institute, the Greenwall Foundation, and Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
