Astonishingly, at a time when many healthcare providers are embracing customer-focused care philosophies, few are offering patients much help when it comes to making crucial decisions. The Center for Shared Decision Making at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center may provide a model for ways in which that help can be offered. The facility offers patients one-on-one counseling and access to informational videos and DVDs which explain the pros and cons of medical procedures peformed at the hospital. Predictably, patients seem to like the idea. Physician feedback is less positive, however, with some objecting to the "outside interference."
- see this story from the Baltimore Sun