Use an existing CardioSmart tool with 3-5 patients and submit an essay about your experience to the CardioSmart team. If your narrative effectively shows Shared Decision-Making in action, you could be 1 of 3 winners.
When we say shared decision-making (SDM) as a cardiology community, we mean:
A care team member opens the discussion about the health condition and introduces treatment options. The potential risks and benefits of the options are shared with the patient using a decision aid when available. The clinician invites the patient’s informed care preferences, goals, values, and lived experience to arrive at a shared treatment plan.
Numerous studies have shown that shared decision-making improves patients' satisfaction with, and involvement in, their health care. SDM also improves accurate risk perceptions of possible benefits and harms among patients; increases the likelihood that patients' choices are more consistent with their informed values; and enhances communication between patients and their clinicians.
To further encourage care teams to engage their patients in SDM, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (the federal agency that provides health coverage to more than 160 million people) requires an SDM interaction for certain patients before placing an implantable cardioverter defibrillator or a left atrial appendage closure device. It is also considering an SDM interaction for carotid stenosis. ACC clinical guidance documents are increasingly including recommendations for shared decision-making as well.
SDM is critical in helping patients make appropriate medical decisions, and ACC leadership remains highly supportive of SDM. As a new generation of cardiologists, you can help us lead the way with this important approach to providing quality care.
CardioSmart/Patient Voice Team will select the Top 3 essays as winners.
These fellows will:
1. Fellows choose from three CardioSmart tools to use with 3-5 patients:
2. Fellows submit a narrative in MS Word (750 words or less) to the CardioSmart Team (astephen@acc.org) demonstrating that they engaged in a shared decision-making conversation using the tool with their patients. Narratives should include the following:
3. The CardioSmart Team will use a four-part grading rubric (see below) to select the winners:
4. CardioSmart/Patient Voice Team and Dr. Megan Coylewright – the CardioSmart Editor – will review all submissions and select the top three winners.
Let us know you’re participating by using #CardioSmart, #SharedDecisionMaking, or #CardioSmartChallenge on X.