Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Shared decision making, an approach to meaningfully engage patients in medical decisions, has a long history at Mass General Hospital. Drs. Albert Mulley and Michael Barry created one of the first decision aids back in 1990. However, like many medical interventions, it wasn’t until about 17 years later, in 2005, in that faculty at the MGH Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation launched the first concerted effort to integrate the tools into routine care, and in 2010, the Health Decision Sciences Center (HDSC) was formed at MGH. Since then, decision aids have been in use at MGH and across the Mass General Brigham system. In 2024, we expect to deliver our 100,000th decision aid. Over the years, different champions across a range of clinical disciplines have moved this field forward. We want to highlight these contributions and capture the evolution of shared decision making across the last several decades. The project will consist of interviews with shared decision making champions focusing on clinical applications, research advances, and policy levers that have contributed to changing the way patients and families are engaged in medical decisions and the barriers that still need to be overcome. These champions are from the disciplines of general internal medicine, orthopedics, cardiology, oncology, and general surgery, among others. Project timeline: April 2024-Feb 2025 (dates are somewhat flexible), with deliverables (e.g. short documentary, podcasts, case reports) that can be released as part of the celebratory activities planned for the countdown to 100k (anticipated to reach that milestone in Fall 2024) and the 20th anniversary of the first decision aid delivered (June 2025). Students will be working with Karen Sepucha, PhD, Director of the HDSC and Associate Professor of Medicine at HMS, and Leigh Simmons, MD, Medical Director of the HDSC who also works closely with HMS students in the Practice of Medicine and the Principal Clinical Experience. For more information about the HDSC, please visit https://mghdecisionsciences.org/.