Patient Decision Aids

My next “Legal Briefing”column, coming out soon in 24(1) Journal of Clinical Ethics, covers recent legal developments involving patient decision aids.  

This topic has been the subject of recent articles
in JCE.  It is included in the 2010 Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act.  And it has been getting significant attention
in the biomedical literature, including a new book, a thematic issue of Health Affairs, and a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Moreover, physicians and health systems
across the United States are increasingly integrating decision aids into their clinical
practice.  Both federal and state laws play a
significant role in promoting this expanded use.  

In this “Legal Briefing” column, we categorize legal developments concerning patient
decision aids into the following five sections:

1.  Development of Decision Aids

2.  Effectiveness of Decision Aids

3.  Federal Regulation of Decision Aids

4.  State Regulation of Decision Aids

5.  Legal Concerns Regarding Decision Aids