Suzanne Delbanco dials up Emily Transue, MD, Associate Medical Director for Clinical Quality and Care Transformation at the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA). They discuss HCA’s shared decision making strategy and the results so far from a pilot project in maternity care. Learn what shared decision making is, why HCA introduced shared decision making, how HCA is using shared decision making in tandem with its’ Accountable Care program, and more.
Emily Transue, a board certified internal medicine physician, offers her perspective to describe the use and impact of shared decision making for patients considering vaginal birth after cesarean. This particular procedure is a prime candidate for shared decision making between patient and provider because it represents a preference-sensitive condition. Preference-sensitive conditions are those where patients will have different preferences based on their personal values. In these situations, a shared decision making strategy helps providers overcome communication challenges and can help lead to better quality of care for the patients.