title: Are patient decision aids the best way to improve clinical decision making? Report of the IPDAS Symposium.
abstract: This article reports on the International Patient Decision Aid Standards Symposium held in 2006 at the annual meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The symposium featured a debate regarding the proposition that "decision aids are the best way to improve clinical decision making.'' The formal debate addressed the theoretical problem of the appropriate gold standard for an improved decision, efficacy of decision aids, and prospects for implementation. Audience comments and questions focused on both theory and practice: the often unacknowledged roots of decision aids in expected utility theory and the practical problems of limited patient decision aid implementation in health care. The participants' vote on the proposition was approximately half for and half against.
authors.affiliation: College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. mholmes@msu.edu
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Holmes-Rovner
authors.forename: Wendy L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pignone
authors.forename: Glyn
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Elwyn
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Rovner
authors.forename: Annette M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coulter
authors.forename: Rosaly
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Correa-de-Araujo
mesh_terms: D003226:Congresses as Topic; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D008404:Massachusetts; D010358:Patient Participation