A recent article in the NYT, “Weighty Choices, in Patients’ Hands” by Laura Landro, discussed the difficult choices patients face in making healthcare decisions, as treatment options become more complex. Due to the overwhelming nature of the information and the inability of physicians to provide patients with the ins and outs of all their options, some medical services providers are providing patients with “coaches” to help educate them about the upsides and downsides of all the patients’ choices and to help guide them in preparing relevant questions for the patients’ doctors. In the excerpt that follows, I’ve highlighted in blue the results reported in the article for this new patient education process.

… the current health-policy debate comes down to a very personal issue: how to make ever-more-complex decisions when faced with multiple options, each with no clear advantage and with risks and harms that patients may value differently. Preliminary data from the National Survey of Medical Decisions, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, showed that doctors are more likely to discuss the advantages of treatments while giving short shrift to the disadvantages. The study also found that doctors often offer their opinion but much less frequently ask the patient’s own opinion.

“There are an increasing number of situations where there is not a clear-cut winner in terms of treatment, and patients don’t get the information they should about side effects and things that could go wrong before making decisions” ... “The result is a huge disconnect between what patients truly care about and what providers feel is most important for patients.”

…Studies show that when patients understand their choices and share in the decision-making process with their doctors, they tend to choose less-invasive and less-expensive treatments than they would have otherwise received.

…“We aren’t telling patients to seek lower costs or less invasive procedures, but on average patients are more risk averse than physicians” …

…Dr. Stormont felt the video and booklet on prostate cancer were incomplete. They didn’t cover some of the newer treatments …Dr. Stormont agreed to use the programs, but supplements them with his own literature that includes information on newer treatment options. He says he has found that the decision aids help patients and their spouses get better educated about early prostate cancer, so his time with them is “more relaxed, efficient and focused.”

…Patients have more realistic expectations about their treatment and side effects and are less likely to seek out second opinions... They also are more comfortable choosing less-invasive treatments after reviewing the decision aids… “On one hand, while I am losing some surgical patients because of this process, on the other, we both are more comfortable that they are choosing the best treatment for them—one that they are more informed about, more comfortable with and less likely to regret later on”...