Chapter 43: Shared Decision Making Around Home Technologies

Shared decision making (SDM) offers a dynamic and collaborative model for health professionals and families to communicate medical information and personal values to reach a mutually agreed on, informed patient- and family-centered course of action.^1,2 This model has been described as a means to decrease the information and power asymmetry between doctors and patients.¹ There are myriad ways to engage in SDM with parents/caregivers (henceforth referred to as caregivers) and families of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with respect to both the types of decisions that need to be made and the approach...