Making interactive decision support for patients a reality

Interactive decision support applications might help patients to make difficult decisions about their health care. They lie in the context of traditional decision aids, which are known to have effects on a number of patient outcomes, including knowledge and decisional conflict. The problem of restricted uptake with decision aids may be addressed by interactive applications, particularly if associated with health information websites. We suggest that there may be an impact on the doctor-patient relationship and that this presents a number of opportunities. However, there are ethical challenges such as information bias and commercialisation.