The care of people who die in hospitals is often suboptimal. Involving patients in decisions about their care is seen as one way to improve care outcomes. Federal and state government policymakers in Australia are promoting shared decision making in acute care hospitals as a means to improve the quality of end-of-life care. If policy is to be effective, health care professionals who provide hospital care will need to respond to its patient-centered purpose. Health services will also be called upon to train health care professionals to work with dying people in a more participatory way and to assist them to develop the clinical processes that support shared decision making. Health professionals who manage clinical workplaces become central in reshaping this practice environment by promoting patient-centered care policy objectives and restructuring health service systems to routinely incorporate patient and family preferences about care at key points in the patient's care episode.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Medical and Health Sciences
Research Group:	Clinical Sciences
Research Field:	Clinical Sciences not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Clinical Health (Organs, Diseases and Abnormal Conditions)
Objective Field:	Cancer and Related Disorders
Author:	Iedema, R (Professor Rick Iedema)
ID Code:	94211
Year Published:	2011
Web of Science® Times Cited:	4
Deposited By:	Health Sciences B
Deposited On:	2014-09-03
Last Modified:	2014-09-03
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