AUA White Paper on Implementation of Shared Decision Making into Urological Practice

Shared decision making is a collaborative approach to care that seeks to improve the quality of medical decisions by helping patients choose options concordant with their values and in accordance with the best available scientific evidence.

A literature review was performed targeting publications between 2003 and 2014 on the topic of shared decision making and decision aids for urological conditions. An expert panel was convened to evaluate this information and create this white paper with the purpose of educating the urological community on these issues.

Shared decision making represents the state of the art in patient counseling. Patients who have engaged in shared decision making have greater knowledge and satisfaction as well as greater engagement with care. Numerous organizations make available free resources for shared decision making including decision aids and tools to evaluate the quality of shared decision making.

Shared decision making is an important component of high quality health care delivery and future reimbursement models. In appropriate circumstances urologists should adopt shared decision making into routine clinical practice.