How to Use Shared Decision-Making to Improve Healthcare
5 min read
Healthcare providers are certainly experts in the field, professionally trained to collect and analyze data on patients and recommend care options they believe best meet patients’ needs. But the patient also plays a role, providing input based on their values and desired health outcomes. The physician-centered approach of the past has begun to evolve, shifting to a more collaborative model called shared decision-making. Let’s take a look at how shared decision-making is improving healthcare.
What Is Shared Decision-Making?
Shared decision-making describes a collaborative communication and decision-making process between a healthcare provider and a patient. During shared decision-making, the provider offers the patient clear, detailed information about their health condition and options for treatment, including the benefits and drawbacks of each course of action. The care team seeks to understand the patient’s concerns and how their values and health goals influence treatment decisions. Together, the patient and physician come to a shared agreement on the best course of action and work collaboratively to implement the decision.
Using the SHARE Approach to Improve Patient-Provider Shared Decision-Making
The SHARE Approach was developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as a framework to support healthcare providers in integrating shared decision-making into their daily practice. This acronym embodies the best practices that make this approach to physician-facilitated decision-making so effective.
Seek your patient’s participation
The cardinal principle of the SHARE Approach is inviting your patient to engage in the process. They may choose not to, and that’s okay. But every interaction should begin with an invitation to take part in the process. After the problem has been presented, let the patient know there is more than one treatment option and their input is valued.
Help your patient explore and compare treatment options
Options always exist. In nearly every circumstance, there’s more than one possibility for how treatment proceeds. Begin by listing the options in writing, explaining the benefits and drawbacks of each along with the expected outcomes. Avoid medical jargon, use visual aids like charts or graphs, and incorporate decision aid tools to break down complex decisions. Asking your patient to explain in their own words what each option would entail can help you gauge the level of understanding to ensure your patient has an accurate understanding of the choices presented.
Assess your patient’s values and preferences
Discovering what’s important to your patient can help providers guide further discussion on treatment options to reach a medically-sound consensus that aligns with patient values. Start the discussion by asking open-ended questions, responding with empathy as patients share what’s most important to them as it relates to their medical condition and the treatment options available. Demonstrating active listening and empathy helps build patient trust, a key asset needed to move forward with treatment once an agreement has been reached.
Reach a decision with your patient
Once values have been expressed and treatment options presented, ask if the patient is ready to make a decision. They may need additional time to consider what’s been discussed, conferring with family members or others in their support network. If a decision isn’t made, set a date in the near future when their preferred treatment option can be expressed.
Evaluate your patient’s decision
Once a treatment decision has been made and treatment has begun, monitor the effectiveness of the chosen option and identify how well it’s performing. Be prepared to revisit the decision, helping the patient evaluate if additional options need to be considered in light of how the chosen treatment is progressing.
How Does Shared Decision-Making Help Patients and Providers?
Shared decision-making offers numerous advantages to both patients and healthcare providers. This cooperative approach actively engages all stakeholders to create care plans that support medical best practices and align with the needs and values of patients.
Aligns with informed consent best practices
Informed consent is required before any medical care, treatment, or services are provided. Shared decision-making supports the informed consent process by actively engaging the patient in decisions related to achieving their desired health outcomes. As patients and providers collaborate, patients are able to ask questions, receive information on the pros and cons of each option presented, and assist in choosing the one that best aligns with what’s most important to them.
Improves quality of patient care
Shared decision-making combines the expertise of the healthcare provider with the values, concerns, and input of the patient. This process helps to strengthen the trust and confidence the patient has in the quality of care they receive, fostering a stronger patient-provider relationship. By taking time to listen and learn, the healthcare provider gains valuable information about the patient they can use to guide the discussion towards the option most likely to meet the patient’s health objectives.
Helps address disparities in healthcare
Some patients face significant barriers to accessing care. These could include lack of reliable transportation, lack of trust in the healthcare system, significant work or childcare obligations, or concerns about the affordability of proposed treatments. Healthcare providers who take the time to listen are better equipped to refer patients to community resources that can alleviate these constraints or tailor treatment recommendations that take important extenuating circumstances into account.
Boosts patient engagement
Ultimately, a collaborative approach helps boost patient engagement. When patients are listened to and validated, they’re more likely to actively participate in their care. This heightened engagement can take the form of keeping scheduled medical appointments, greater treatment plan compliance, and greater levels of participation in lifestyle changes needed to reach mutually agreed-upon health goals.
How Withings Health Solutions Supports Shared Decision-Making
Withings connected devices collect and transmit key health metrics. These connected devices provide physicians and patients with valuable information that plays an important role in the shared decision-making process.
Easy to use, engaging device designs increase patient engagement
Our connected devices are designed to activate high levels of patient engagement. Their simple design makes it easy for patients to unlock the full potential of remote patient monitoring technology.
Multiple connectivity options
With Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth connectivity options, providers can pair patients with devices that feature the best connectivity option for them, improving adoption rates.
Extensive collection of remote patient monitoring devices
Withings has a comprehensive line of smart connected devices, including blood pressure monitors, scales, sleep mat, and activity trackers, that may be easily incorporated into a remote patient monitoring program.
Unlocking the Full Potential of Shared Decision-Making
Encouraging patients to engage with providers as equal partners in the medical decision-making process unlocks a host of benefits for both parties. Healthcare providers are better equipped to provide treatment that aligns with patient health goals and values. And active input results in patients feeling empowered, with confidence that the treatment they chose to pursue will best support their desired health outcomes.
Learn how Withings Health Solutions can help support shared decision-making.
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A study published in November of 2024 in the Journal of the American Heart Association confirmed common feedback we hear from care teams: home blood pressure measurements are often not performed according to guidelines.
Only about a third of study participants reported receiving education on home blood pressure monitoring, and many described the education they received as “vague.” As a result, those patients who received any education did not perform higher quality blood pressure measurements at home.
Remote blood pressure monitoring has strong support from the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association (1), yet logistical concerns are preventing more widespread adoption by clinical teams. As blood pressure is a highly sensitive measurement, many healthcare providers worry about measurement quality and accuracy. And they want to avoid staffing challenges, such as time spent reaching out to patients with high readings that turn out to be incorrect measurements.
BPM Pro 2 was designed to address this common clinician feedback. With simple illustrations and clear step-by-step text, BPM Pro 2 guides the user through proper technique while they’re taking a measurement, which creates more meaningful engagement. And through cellular data transmission, care teams can perform easy, rapid interventions when patients are not taking enough readings or when the readings are out of range.
Home blood pressure readings can offer vital data and insight into a patient’s progression. But patients must receive the right guidance to ensure accuracy and optimize care.
[post_title] => Point of Care Blood Pressure Education is the Key to Accuracy
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This article is based on our November 1, 2024 interview with Pr. Solomon Tesfaye.
When Solomon Tesfaye was a 16-year-old boy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a military regime closed his school and forced the students into national service. Tesfaye, who had by then developed a true passion for learning, desperately hoped to continue his intellectual development and academic journey.
On the urging of his brother, he took a chance and applied for an international scholarship to the prestigious Sevenoaks School in Kent, England. Sevenoaks, a storied boarding school founded in 1432, may have seemed like an unlikely next home for Tesfaye. But they also decided to take a chance on him. Those bets ultimately paid off.
Pr. Tesfaye is now a globally recognized diabetes expert at the University of Sheffield whose research has played a significant role in understanding diabetic nerve damage, how to identify it earlier, and how to potentially treat it before the complications become debilitating. In September, Pr. Tesfaye was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 34th NeuroDiab annual meeting in recognition of his pioneering research in the field. Tesfaye credits his experience at Sevenoaks School as having kindled his interest in science and his enduring passion for grappling with difficult problems, like diabetic peripheral neuropathies (DPN).
Fast forward to today and Pr. Tesfaye is leading some of the most exciting work on early diagnosis of DPN and clinical strategies for altering its relentless progression. His team at University of Sheffield recently presented findings at The American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions that found the use of point-of-care testing devices by clinicians (Withings’ Sudoscan in combination with DPNCheck) could significantly improve the detection of DPN over current standard of care methods and provide a rapid, reproducible, and quantitative assessment for busy clinicians.
“For diabetic retinopathy, we’ve been successful using technology to improve diagnosis and care,” said Tesfaye. “But for neuropathy, we're using these Stone Age implements. With a monofilament, even the best doctors cannot diagnose neuropathy the same two days in a row. Meanwhile, fifty percent (of patients) die within 5 years, it costs more than breast or colon cancer, and is devastating because it's so painful patients can't sleep. Sadly, advanced neuropathy is the strongest risk factor for diabetic foot ulceration that results in fifty percent mortality within 5 years, and costs more than breast, colon and prostate cancers, combined. Neuropathy also is devastating as it can also cause distressing foot and leg pain that interferes with sleep.”
Tesfaye is now immersed in a major new study with 160 participants – called OCEANIC – that seeks to determine whether early diagnosis, coupled with robust, early intervention can alter the course of DPN for the better. OCEANIC is using Withings Body Pro 2 smart scales with Electrochemical Skin Conductance (ESC) technology, wearable sensors, and activity trackers, to monitor and share patient progress on metrics including body fat, muscle mass, and ESC score, with the aim of reinforcing lifestyle changes. The study group will receive personalized diabetes education and exercise programs, and weight loss interventions including GLP-1s, to significantly reduce HbA1C.
“Our goal is to explore whether these intensive strategies to manage risk factors can halt or even reverse diabetes-related nerve damage when it is identified at an early stage,” said Pr. Tesfaye. “We want to do for neuropathy what early and routine screening has done for retinopathy – bringing better outcomes to millions of people with diabetes.”
If Solomon Tesfaye’s history is any guide, achieving clear answers to the big questions in the OCEANIC study will be but a waypoint on his journey. He credits a mentor, the late Professor John Ward, with encouraging him to tackle the most meaningful problems. “He told me not to worry about publishing too many studies, but rather focus on a few big questions that will fundamentally change people’s lives.”
Interested in partnering with us?
Contact Us
[post_title] => Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Pr. Solomon Tesfaye and His Quest to Eradicate Preventable Amputations
[post_excerpt] => Pr. Solomon Tesfaye is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of diabetic peripheral neuropathies (DPN). His life has been a story of overcoming challenges with a mission to tackle one of the biggest problems facing people with diabetes - preventable amputations.
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Withings products not only help individuals and their clinicians better monitor and understand health, but they are contributing to a wide body of research. Withings is honored that researchers are increasingly turning to our products across an impressive number of therapeutic areas. Among them are diabetic neuropathy, retinopathy, sudomotor function, hypertension, sleep quality, sleep apnea, dementia, ECG intervals in children, arrhythmias, cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN), public health monitoring, and health technology adoption.
Here’s just a sampling of the diversity and reach of Withings products in medical research this year.
An October 2024 article in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy looks at the history and technical development of electrochemical skin conductance (ESC), as measured by Withings’ Sudoscan, and compares it to other measures of skin conductance such as galvanic skin response (GSR) and electrodermal activity (EDA). ESC was developed specifically to diagnose sudomotor function as opposed to GSR/EDA which is a continuous monitoring tool. EDA is increasingly incorporated into wearable technology. While both use skin/sweat conductance, it is important to differentiate EDA which can be used for physiological and psychological measures of stress from ESC which is used to evaluate sudomotor function and diagnose neuropathy. Withings has incorporated ESC in its smart scales which show a near perfect correlation with the Sudoscan clinical device. The Withings smart scales allow for easier and more frequent individual time series data as well as large scale data collection.
Public health surveillance has largely relied on self-reported surveys. This study applied mobile and wearable technologies to collect objective, real-time, continuous health data. Data from a variety of Withings products (Withings Sleep, Withings BPM Connect, Withings Thermo, and Withings Body+), were used to predict stress. Findings showed that a system, such as the Mobile Health Platform used here, could complement self-reported health data to better monitor and predict stress in a population.
This study compared the 1-lead ECG intervals available via the Withings ScanWatch with the standard 12-lead ECGs in children and adolescents. Smart watch intervals have previously been shown to be accurate for adults. The heart rate measure was found to be reliable for children, The automated QTc interval was less reliable but can be improved with manual measurements. It is worth noting that the study used pediatric subjects rather than adapting adult research, as is often the case.
This study of 67,254 adults showed that 30% of adults do not get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night, and that even those who did average 7-9 hours, 40% of the nights fell outside the range. Only 15% of participants slept 7-9 hours for at least 5 nights per week. In addition to the findings of irregular sleep, the study highlights the usefulness of the at home Withings Sleep for large-scale and/or longitudinal sleep studies.
As we close out a year of significant knowledge advancements, we look forward to seeing what the global healthcare research community has in store for 2025.
If you are conducting research that might benefit from Withings technology, please contact us at contact-pro@withings.com.
Interested in partnering with us?
Contact Us
[post_title] => Withings 2024 Year in Review: Research Highlights
[post_excerpt] => 2024 was an exciting year for Withings. We’re honored that the global research community is increasingly turning to our solutions for studies across an impressive number of therapeutic areas. Among them are diabetic neuropathy, retinopathy, sudomotor function, hypertension, sleep quality, sleep apnea, dementia, ECG intervals in children, arrhythmias, cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN), public health monitoring, and health technology adoption.
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A study published in November of 2024 in the Journal of the American Heart Association confirmed common feedback we hear from care teams: home blood pressure measurements are often not performed according to guidelines.
Only about a third of study participants reported receiving education on home blood pressure monitoring, and many described the education they received as “vague.” As a result, those patients who received any education did not perform higher quality blood pressure measurements at home.
Remote blood pressure monitoring has strong support from the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association (1), yet logistical concerns are preventing more widespread adoption by clinical teams. As blood pressure is a highly sensitive measurement, many healthcare providers worry about measurement quality and accuracy. And they want to avoid staffing challenges, such as time spent reaching out to patients with high readings that turn out to be incorrect measurements.
BPM Pro 2 was designed to address this common clinician feedback. With simple illustrations and clear step-by-step text, BPM Pro 2 guides the user through proper technique while they’re taking a measurement, which creates more meaningful engagement. And through cellular data transmission, care teams can perform easy, rapid interventions when patients are not taking enough readings or when the readings are out of range.
Home blood pressure readings can offer vital data and insight into a patient’s progression. But patients must receive the right guidance to ensure accuracy and optimize care.
