But after participating in the Salzburg Global Seminar, where the thesis that” better decision making by patients will result in better and cheaper healthcare” was debated, my views have shifted. All participants agreed that health professionals have an ethical duty to support patients to make informed “shared” decisions, and that they should explore patients’ values and preferences for treatment, although choice is not a luxury that all countries enjoy, as Biao Xu, an epidemiologist from Shanghai underlined in her blog.

But in well resourced countries, patients do have options, and evidence presented at the meeting, including the work on choice of treatment for prostate cancer suggests that when they are fully and accurately informed about the benefits and harms of interventions, they opt for fewer treatments. Hence the potential for cost savings.

Several participants dissected the choices and decisions made about their own medical care, and half way I found myself silently interrogating one of mine. Five years ago I opted to have postoperative abdominal radiotherapy, despite the absence of evidence it would reduce recurrence of a rare cancer. The consultant was clear about this but suggested that it made empirical sense. Towards the end of treatment , when I had boned up on all the risks of undergoing high dose radiotherapy I became alarmed about the trade-off and skipped the last sessions. A good example of a bad and expensive decision?

Many factors influence patients’ choice about treatment, foremost among which is the ability and readiness of doctors to offer it. But this varies from region to region and unit to unit and needs to be confronted and unpicked (read BMJ article by Jack Wennberg). “Supplier induced demand” is a reality, that doctors and patients need to be much more aware of. One way to counter this is to ensure that decisions on management are fully shared and informed, the “nothing about me without me ”agenda. Patients need comprehensive accurate and up to date information about the benefits and harms of treatment (and high quality decision aids help) and their preferences and values taken into account (read BMJ article by Albert G Mulley), not least on decisions about end of life care. These messages came over loud and clear from the authors of these two seminal BMJ papers , Jack Wennberg and Al Mulley, who cofounded the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, which supported the symposium.

Doctors’ enthusiasm to offer treatment to patients is fuelled by the publication of papers that are optimistic about its value. Medical journals clearly have a pivotal role here. I shrank in my seat as I listened to a barrage of criticism about the way journals propagate misinformation, and fan the daily tsunami of hype ridden health stories in the media. Editors need to get much better at tackling publication bias (towards studies with positive results), misleading communication of risk (read BMJ article by Gerd Gigerenzer et al), letting authors get away with spin, and reproducing this in press releases.

This was my main take home message, and in the linked blogs below you can read what other participants took away from Salzburg, where snow doesn’t disrupt services and the Sound of Music is everywhere, and the vision of realising best practice can be seen.

Tessa Richards is analysis editor, BMJ.

Read the original article here: BMJ Group Blogs  (link opens in a new window)