Informed consent or shared decision-making

When patient-centred care is worth doing well: informed consent or shared decision-making is an editorial from BMJ Quality & Safety which looks at the interactions and differences between informed consent and shared decision making (SDM) in aiming for patient-centred care. 

The authors describe informed consent as being the minimum legal standard where clinicians tell the patient about the procedure, including risks, benefits and possible alternatives, then the patient accepts or rejects this. SDM is presented here as a more evolved response to the need for patient centeredness. "We must not confuse SDM with the distribution of decision aids or patient education materials for patients, expecting patients to find the best answer on their own: there is nothing shared about choosing alone from a menu!"

Kunneman M, Montori VM. BMJ Quality & Safety. 2016 [epub] http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2016-005969