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How Technology Fosters Shared Decision Making In Healthcare

Modern healthcare is all about cutting costs on existing approaches that retain the effectiveness of treatment and, of course, increase recovery and survival rates with careful consideration of life quality. Shared decision-making (SDM) in patient care is a logical solution to all of these issues. That is why it’s getting more popular every year, especially in the United States and some of Europe.

So, what is shared decision making and why does it affect patients and the entire healthcare system? The answer is obvious: it’s a joint process that enables patients and their medical providers to make decisions on their healthcare together, considering scientific evidence and patients’ priorities and values. It is especially appropriate to exercise in cases when there is more than one option available in treating a particular condition, with all its risks and benefits.

Choosing an optimal approach in such situations should not only depend on dry medical data but also on the patient’s personal preferences and life choices. This, in fact, helps patients become more aware of their current conditions, take part in a two-sided discussion of their treatment, better understand all of the available options, and generally feel more empowered by being able to make a decision together with a physician. The patient feels better being part of the team who provides medical attention to them. As a result, the more patients are engaged with their treatment, the better care they can be granted with.

On the other hand, most of the information available for people without a medical degree can not be always sufficient or compared to the knowledge of the actual doctors. How do the patients decide if they don’t feel confident about choosing what is best for them? Innovative eHealth technology is there to help!

SDM tools developed to collect and analyze data can narrow down a problematic choice to one option that best fits patients as an individual with their own expectations and lifestyles. DECIDE Treatment is one of the decision-aid solutions that Intersog has built to ease Norwegians’ therapy choices through technology. First of all, it’s safe in terms of keeping/transferring data, as it's strictly compliant with HIPAA requirements and regulations.

Secondly, the tool is built in a user-friendly format where everyone can summarize various treatment research data and decide on the medical approach based on their individual life conditions and preferences. In addition, the app users can keep track of their health conditions over time as well as support scientific feasibility research of progressive treatment methods for stroke, lung disease, bipolar disorders, and some other mental conditions affecting a lot of people in the world.

The bottom line is that a shared decision-making process in healthcare faces many challenges regularly. And even though in countries where it’s implemented, SDM is supported by legal systems and national healthcare agendas, there are still obstacles to overcome.

On the other hand, as patient decision aid engines catch on and go mainstream (which is inevitable in the near future given the tech-savvy and digital native millennial population that prefers eHealthcare to traditional healthcare) and medical software companies develop exciting use cases and gain first-hand experience with building, future-proofing and deploying technology that enables shared decision making, healthcare organizations will invest more in such technology development to foster mass adoption.

What other patient decision-aid tools do you know?

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Intersog is a leading IT solutions provider in the United States and other countries. The company has provided agile software engineering and staffing services for Fortune 500 corporations, tech startups, and SaaS businesses for over eighteen years. Why Intersog.
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