www.making-good-decisions.org

 www.health.org.uk

MAGIC: MAking Good decisions In Collaboration with patients

Aim

The 18-month programme will design and test interventions to encourage the use of shared decision making and runs from August 2010 to January 2012. 

Background

Shared decision making recognises that while clinicians are the experts about different treatment options available, the individual is also an expert about her or his own circumstances. This includes their personal preferences (what is important to them) and their attitudes to risk. Shared decision making invites clinicians and patients to pool their differing expertise and work together as active partners when making choices about care. This works particularly well in situations where there is more than one reasonable course of action. Often difficult decisions need to be made based on the amount of risk involved and the potential outcome of each choice.

About the study

The Making Good Decisions in Collaboration (MAGIC) programme is a joint venture between Cardiff School of Medicine, Newcastle University, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The 18-month programme will explore how clinicians can engage patients in shared decision making and how it can be embedded into mainstream health services. The programme will design and test interventions to encourage the use of shared decision making and runs from August 2010 to January 2012. Professor Glyn Elwyn at Cardiff University and Professor Richard Thomson at Newcastle University will together lead a multidisciplinary ‘design team’ made up of senior academics, clinicians and managers. The team will design and test interventions across a range of sites and clinical areas, including:

• primary care
• obstetrics
• urology
• breast cancer care
• ear, nose and throat.

MAGIC will build practical and transferable knowledge about how shared decision making can become a core characteristic of routine clinical care across the NHS. The design team will:

• Raise awareness of existing decision support tools which have already been proven to be effective, focusing on the behavioural shift needed to roll out their use.
• Use a range of social marketing techniques to raise awareness of the benefits of shared decision making among service users and staff in each site. 
• Use action learning and rapid quality improvement methods to support change.
• Support the process of culture change required for embedding shared decision making by implementing a detailed strategy for engaging clinicians.

Further Info