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Making healthcare decisions can be complex. There is often a large amount of information to consider, such as test results, treatment options, risks, and benefits. Sorting through this information and deciding what is most appropriate for a patient’s situation can be challenging. PC CDS tools can help collect patient preference data before, during, or after a clinical visit and apply this information for clinical care to ensure healthcare decisions are more personalized and meaningful.
About the Topic Highlight
This resource defines the different types of patient preference data, describes why it is important to incorporate patient preferences into PC CDS, and outlines how to collect preferences. The topic highlight also provides three patient journey examples, which illustrate how preferences might be collected for PC CDS depending on the type of healthcare decision.
This resource references the following CDSiC reports:
- Taxonomy of Patient Preferences
- Capturing Patient Preferences for Patient-Centered Clinical Decision Support Within Patient Lifeflows and Clinical Workflows
How To Use This Topic Highlight
Patients and caregivers can use this resource to learn the importance of incorporating patient preferences in PC CDS and how digital health tools can help with collecting patient preferences to ensure shared decision making between patients and clinicians is more personalized. Clinicians can use this resource to understand the best approaches for using PC CDS to collect patient preference information to support shared decision making, improve patient satisfaction, and encourage acceptance of care plans. CDS developers can use this resource to develop new PC CDS tools in ways that facilitate patient preference data collection.
Suggested Citation: Shah A, Das S, Abdulhay L, Ancker J, Dobes A, Desai PJ, CDSiC Trust and Patient Centeredness Workgroup, and Dullabh PM. Incorporating Patient Preferences in Patient-Centered Clinical Decision Support. Prepared under Contract No. 75Q80120D00018. AHRQ Publication No. 25-0055. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; June 2025.
