Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) and the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge to add new content to the Shared Decision Making elearning programme.
The Shared Decision Making elearning programme is aimed at healthcare professionals, health improvement personnel and patient engagement representatives to inform and educate them on Shared Decision Making in order to embed it in day to day clinical practice.
Two new courses Communicating Risk – Primary Care and Perioperative Medicine – have been added to the programme alongside the existing courses – Guidance on Shared Decision Making, Dialogues in Shared Decision Making and Talking about What Matters.
The Communicating Risk course has two versions; one for primary care professionals and one for perioperative medicine professionals. Each course is designed to help clinicians develop skills for communicating effectively with patients about the risks and benefits of treatment options. Each course consists of four sessions and will take approximately two hours to complete, with each session taking approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Each version of the course includes examples taken either from primary care or perioperative medicine. It includes self-test questions and video consultation case-studies.
By the end of each course, participants will be able to:
* describe why it is important for clinicians to effectively communicate benefits, harms, trade-offs and uncertainties with patients
* explain the inter-relationship between shared decision making, evidence-based medicine and patient-centred care in the context of communicating benefits and
* list key communication skills needed when talking with patients about evidence
* explain how to effectively communicate statistical information to patients
* outline the role of decision support tools, potential uses and where to locate them.
The Communicating Risk course was originally commissioned by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and has been licensed to the AoMRC as part of Choosing Wisely UK. It has been adapted for the UK by the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge.
To access the Primary Care course select: https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Component/Details/543267 and to access the Perioperative Medicine course select: https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Component/Details/529401.
For more information about all courses that are part of the Shared Decision Making programme visit https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/shared-decision-making/.
International learners can access the resources here: https://moodle.wintoncentre.uk.