Interprofessional Education in Shared Decision-Making:

Background: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought about many changes to our healthcare system.  One of the changes encourages shared decision-making (section 3506) in order to better align the patient’s preferences to their medical care.  However, since the enactment there has been suboptimal efforts to promote shared decision-making (SDM) and to educate healthcare professionals about SDM techniques and applications.  SDM has to potential to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes (Stacy et al, 2011; & Arterbaurn et al, 2012). Interprofessional SDM involves multiple disciplines to collaborate to assist the patient to the best decision for them.  Nurse Practitioners are at the forefront of primary care and should utilize SDM to promote positive health outcomes for their patients.

Objective: To identify barriers and facilitators to interprofessional SDM implementation and to appreciate how SDM can improve nurse practitioner’s clinical practice and patient-centered outcomes.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nurse practitioners in an interdisciplinary post-graduate fellowship.  Interviews were recorded, transcribed and themes were extracted. The barriers identified include time constraints, understanding of each professional roles, and lack of formal training in school. The facilitators identified include dedicated time with senior clinicians, improved patient satisfaction/knowledge, and appropriate use of healthcare colleagues.

Conclusion: The findings of the qualitative study strongly suggest that there is value in interprofessional SDM in post-graduate training programs. This could facilitate nurse practitioner graduates to contribute to the clinical team in delivering high quality patient-centered care. NPs will help patients become further engaged in their care which will in turn improve health outcomes and the proper use of healthcare resources.