Paper Example: Incorporating Patient's Preferences

It is no doubt that involving patients and their families in healthcare decisions is one of the most important aspects of offering treatments. This is one of the frequent discussions I have always experienced at the healthcare facility as nurses consult with the patients and their families regarding the type of care and treatment to be undertaken. It cannot be denied that family influence in healthcare decision-making has not been accorded much attention even though it is an important aspect. However, most families of patients are involved in their healthcare decision-making process.

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It is important to note that when patient preferences are incorporated in the care plan, it serves as a significant boost in obtaining more information about the disease as well as helping to determine the number of factors such as the extent of the disease as well as the type of healthcare that should be offered. For example, a patient with cancer can prefer to be screened first before treatment begins, and therefore, incorporating the preferences of the patient is very necessary. However, it should be noted that, in some cases, incorporating patient preferences and values can be a deterrent to the health care plan of the facility. For example, some patients might give wrong preferences that are contrary to healthcare regulations, and this can cause misunderstanding that leads to healthcare problems. This can be aggravated when a patient observes some values that are contrary to healthcare regulations. For example, a patient fails to attend a screening session because of it a Saturday. This compromises the treatment and care plan.

As stated above, it cannot be denied that decision aids massively help patients to participate with their health care providers in making personalized and personalized choices among healthcare options that exist. One of the significant importance of a decision aid is that information if given regarding the condition, the health care options that are available, possible outcomes, as well as other links associated with the outcomes. Finally, it would be worth mentioning that a decision aid is mostly used in situations in which patients need to be thoughtful concerning their value associated with the benefits as well as harms of their options. In this case, as a professional, during my practice, I would embrace the use of decision aid as it is a beneficial tool in healthcare.

References

Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (Eds.). (2011). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Hoffmann, T. C., Montori, V. M., & Del Mar, C. (2014). The connection between evidence-based medicine and shared decision making. Jama, 312(13), 1295-1296. Retrieved from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1910118

Kon, A. A., Davidson, J. E., Morrison, W., Danis, M., & White, D. B. (2016). Shared decision making in intensive care units: an American College of Critical Care Medicine and American Thoracic Society policy statement. Critical care medicine, 44(1), 188. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4788386/

Opperman, C., Liebig, D., Bowling, J., Johnson, C. S., & Harper, M. (2016). Measuring return on investment for professional development activities: Implications for practice. Journal for nurses in professional development, 32(4), 176-184. https://nursing.ceconnection.com/ovidfiles/01709760-201811000-00003.pdf

Schroy III, P. C., Mylvaganam, S., & Davidson, P. (2014). Provider perspectives on the utility of a colorectal cancer screening decision aid for facilitating shared decision making. Health Expectations, 17(1), 27-35. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21902773

Volk, R. J., Llewellyn-Thomas, H., Stacey, D., & Elwyn, G. (2013). Ten years of the International Patient Decision Aid Standards Collaboration: evolution of the core dimensions for assessing the quality of patient decision aids. https://bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6947-13-S2-S7