(1) The legislature finds that there is growing evidence that, for preference-sensitive care involving elective surgery, patient-practitioner communication is improved through the use of high-quality decision aids that detail the benefits, harms, and uncertainty of available treatment options. Improved communication leads to more fully informed patient decisions. The legislature intends to increase the extent to which patients make genuinely informed, preference-based treatment decisions, by promoting public/private collaborative efforts to broaden the development, certification, use, and evaluation of effective decision aids and by recognition of shared decision making and patient decision aids in the state's laws on informed consent.

     (2) The health care authority shall implement a shared decision-making demonstration project. The demonstration project shall be conducted at one or more multispecialty group practice sites providing state purchased health care in the state of Washington, and may include other practice sites providing state purchased health care. The demonstration project shall include the following elements:

     (a) Incorporation into clinical practice of one or more decision aids for one or more identified preference-sensitive care areas combined with ongoing training and support of involved practitioners and practice teams, preferably at sites with necessary supportive health information technology;

     (b) An evaluation of the impact of the use of shared decision making with decision aids, including the use of preference-sensitive health care services selected for the demonstration project and expenditures for those services, the impact on patients, including patient understanding of the treatment options presented and concordance between patient values and the care received, and patient and practitioner satisfaction with the shared decision-making process; and

     (c) As a condition of participating in the demonstration project, a participating practice site must bear the cost of selecting, purchasing, and incorporating the chosen decision aids into clinical practice.

     (3) The health care authority may solicit and accept funding and in-kind contributions to support the demonstration and evaluation, and may scale the evaluation to fall within resulting resource parameters.

[2007 c 259 § 2.]

NOTES:

Severability -- 2007 c 259: "If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected." [2007 c 259 § 68.]

     Subheadings not law -- 2007 c 259: "Subheadings used in this act are not any part of the law." [2007 c 259 § 71.]