Involving patients in decisions concerning their own care is an increasingly important part of the individual choice of care in our healthcare system. When patients have a say in their care, they understand the rationale for it and become more engaged in it. Ready-made discussion templates and tools for involvement help doctors and patients make treatment choices together.
A fundamental shift is taking place in healthcare decision-making and the patient encounter, from professionally driven decision-making to Shared Decision Making – or in other words, patients’ involvement in their own care.
It has been shown that involving patients in the decision-making process of their own care has many positive outcomes. It increases patient autonomy, improves adherence and patient safety, and reduces the number of visits to the clinic by eliminating unnecessary visits. The number of adverse events is also reduced through better self-care.1,2
The benefits of patient involvement are already widely recognised and highlighted at societal level from many perspectives. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health strategy for “Making Health Information Useful 2020” focuses on patient-centricity and supporting citizens’ active self-care through digital tools.
Likewise, the Ministery of Social Affairs and Health Customer and Patient Safety Strategy 2026 strategic focus “together with customers and patients” focuses on strengthening patient involvement through the patient safety perspective: avoiding any avoidable harm, increasing involvement to improve safety.
The University of Eastern Finland, the University of Tampere, the University of Oulu and The Finnish Medical Society Duodecim are involved in the PROSHADE project, which studies, evaluates and develops the use of economic, impact and patient-generated data in shared decision-making practices in healthcare organisations and patients’ care decisions.
Involving patients in their own care and shared decision-making is a joint process, always involving two experts in their own field. The doctor brings the latest knowledge based on scientific research and evidence into the dialogue, and the patient is the expert and decision-maker in their own condition – based on their own preferences, goals, beliefs and values.
A key element of shared decision-making is that, through mutual expertise, the health professional and the patient form a shared understanding of the practical treatment options, the scientific evidence and the likely consequences of the treatment options.
However, this knowledge component is not necessarily sufficient to genuinely involve the patient in his or her own care: in addition to sharing knowledge, the patient’s values and wishes need to be identified and taken into account, ideally leading to a jointly acceptable treatment decision to which the patient commits to.
The ideology of participation also allows patients to choose the extent to which they want to be involved in decision-making. There are also patients who do not want to take an active role in decisions about their care. For them, the patient involvement toolkit focuses on meaningful patient encounters, sharing information and building a good, trusting care relationship.
In particular, the care package for the chronically ill is largely about medication, lifestyle management and monitoring the implementation of both. Often, the implementation of all of these is left to the patient in everyday life. The way in which patients understand the importance of their care and commit to it is of particular importance.
When the care that the patient needs is well planned and implemented by the patient and the doctor, the care is effective and has clear health benefits.
Involving patients in decision-making and helping them to understand their own illness and its treatment can be facilitated by various discussion models and tools, such as the SHARE model, the Three Conversations model, option grid tools or perhaps the more familiar Motivational Interviewing method. Using a ready-made template can save time at the practice and ensure that key issues are discussed with the patient.
Would you like to know more about patient involvement and shared decision making or how to build a patient involvement training package that may be suitable for you or your clients? We would be happy to help you put together a toolkit to meet your specific patient involvement needs and support you in its implementation.
References:
Patient involvement in their own care and shared decision making is a joint process, where always two experts in their own field meet at the practice.