Shared Decision-Making Challenge

Congratulations!

Congratulations to ACC’s CardioSmart Challenge winners, Drew Mendoza, MD, Marc Erickson, MD, and Muhammad Asim Shabbir, MD! The winners demonstrated the importance of shared decision-making conversations. You can read each of their essays, which focus on empowering patients to lead conversations about their care, figuring out the right treatment for patients with AFib, and the importance of listening to patients.  

Learn more about shared decision-making and find CardioSmart tools to help facilitate those conversations with patients. Congratulations again to all the winners! They each will be featured in Cardiology magazine, receive free registration at ACC.23 in New Orleans, and will have the opportunity to present at the Program Directors and Graduate Medical Educators Symposium during the annual meeting. 

The CardioSmart Challenge for FITs

CardioSmart worked with Cardiology Fellowship Program Directors across the country to help educate fellows-in-training about the importance of shared decision-making. 

We asked fellows-in-training to use a CardioSmart tool with 5 patients and submit an essay about their experience to their Program Director. If the narrative effectively showed shared decision-making in action, they were eligible to be 1 of 3 winners.

The Reward

CardioSmart/Patient Voice Team selected the Top 3 essays as winners.
These fellows will:

• Be featured in Cardiology magazine
• Receive free registration at ACC.23 annual meeting in New Orleans
• Have an opportunity to present at the Program Directors and Graduate Medical Educators Symposium at ACC.23 

Detailed Instructions

1. Fellows choose from three CardioSmart tools to use with five patients:

2. Fellows submit a narrative to their Program Director (750 words or less) via MS Word demonstrating that they engaged in a shared decision-making conversation using the tool with their patients. Narratives should include the following:

• Basic information including:
  • Gender/age/ethnicity/condition of patients
  • Geographic area of clinician and patient
  • Decision aid or infographic used with patient
  • Setting (virtual vs. in-office)
• Did this tool help to facilitate your decision-making conversation with your patients?
• How long did this process take/how long did you spend with each patient?
• What went well during this process?
• What challenges did you face?
• What would you improve/what would make this process easier (for clinician and patient)?
• What decision was made? If not, why not?

3. Program Directors will use a four-part grading rubric (see below) to select one fellow’s narrative to move on for final judging by the CardioSmart/Patient Voice Team:

1. Demonstrates an understanding of the 5 steps of shared decision-making
2. Explains how shared decision-making enriched the clinician-patient relationship
3. Addresses social determinants of health and their impact on patient decision making
4. Expresses how the challenge intersects with at least one of the ACGME Competencies:

• Patient care and procedural skills
• Medical knowledge
• Practice-based learning and improvement
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Professionalism
• Systems-based practice

4. Program Directors select the narrative from their program with the highest score and then email their pick to Arielle Fingerman at afingerman@acc.org with “Shared Decision-Making Challenge” in the subject line.  

5. CardioSmart/Patient Voice Team will review all submissions and select the top three winners. 

Let us know you’re participating by using #CardioSmart, #SharedDecisionMaking, or #CardioSmartChallenge on Twitter. 

Dr. Erickson: Being open to a give-and-take of information helps patients make choices that align with their values.

Dr. Shabbir: Tools support discussions to ensure patients understand their risk

Dr. Mendoza: Shared decisions start with listening to patients, not talking at them