Supporting shared decision making within the MobiGuide project

This paper describes our approach for fostering and facilitating communication among patients and caregivers in the context of shared decision making, i.e., when decisions must be taken not only on the basis of scientific evidence but also of the patient's preferences and context. This happens because clinical practice guidelines cannot provide recommendations for every possible situation, and cannot foresee every change in a patient's context, which might imply the deviation from a previously acknowledged recommendation. Within the EU-funded project MobiGuide (www.mobiguide-project.eu), supporting remote patient management, we propose decision theory as a methodological framework for a tool that, during face to face encounters, is used to tailor pre-defined, generic decision models to the individual patient, by involving the patient himself in the customization of the model parameters. Although this approach is not appropriate for all patients, it leads, in well-chosen cases, to a more informed choice, with potentially better treatment compliance.