The Eisenberg Center convenes scientific meetings for the discussion of state-of-the-art concepts in communication and medical decisionmaking. Experts in health communication, health literacy, shared decisionmaking, and related fields come together to produce high quality, scholarly white papers (and stakeholder commentaries) that offer insight into how state-of-the-art advances in medical science can be transformed into state-of-the-art clinical decisionmaking and improved health communication.
This conference took place on September 12, 2013, in Rockville, Maryland. The conference format had three topic-oriented sessions followed by group discussions to review research, and identify gaps that might be addressed in future study. The specific objectives of the conference were to: 1) review the state of the science around selected questions of importance to engaging patients in the use of evidence in shared decision making; 2) identify gaps in the research between what is known and what is needed to understand regarding the proposed conference theme; and 3) articulate the practical implications of why closing each of these gaps will advance the science and implementation of informed/shared decision making.