Shared Decision Making in Australia

In 2017 the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care plans to release the second version of the Australian ‘National Safety and Quality Health Services Standards’ and by 2019, all health services will be assessed against these standards for accreditation. The evolution of “Standard Two: Partnering with Consumers” in the 2012 version to the new version in 2017 demonstrates a clear shift towards patients being more actively involved in their own care if that is their preference.

This is a short paper summarising the state of and potential for shared decision making (SDM) in healthcare in Australia. It covers some of the practice and policy developments of recent time, including how national standards encouraging the greater engagement of patient, including the use of SDM, and other levers for uptake. It also describes some of the consumer and academic activity in this area, where a number of Australian-based academics have been instrumental. The paper also identifies a number of challenges, including the clarification of core competencies in SDM, meaningful measures of SDM implementation, certification of patient decision aids or other tools, tools for vulnerable and/or multicultural populations, along with issues of sustainability.

Shared Decision Making in Australia in 2017. (Partizipative Entscheidungsfindung in Australien im Jahr) 2017. Zeitschrift für Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualität im Gesundheitswesen. available online May 18, 2017