"Certified Patient Decision Aids: Solving Persistent Problems with Informed Consent Law" from JLME

Prof. Thaddeus Mason Pope argues in his recent paper that patient decision aids (PDA) are here to stay. Informed consent, he argues, must ensure that patients' preferences and values are reflected in the the medical care they get. However, in practice, medical providers do not elicit their patient's preferences and values. In response to this "gap", as he calls it, between theory and practice, policymakers are promoting the use of PDA, a mostly investigational tool that is making its way to the medical setting. The law, through incentives and penalties, is becoming the main tool to eliminate the barriers that created that gap; and in his paper, Prof. Pope gives a legal account of PDA and what should we watch for as we move forward with them.