Care delivery is at an inflection point. Health systems are facing seemingly competing priorities: lowering costs, improving staff morale, meeting quality metrics, and harnessing emerging technologies. Patient expectations are also shifting, as increasingly digital populations start looking for more ownership and personalization in their care journey. Younger generations are increasingly turning to the internet and social media for health information, opening them up to opportunities for misinformation.
Additionally, patients tend to forget 40-80% of what their provider told them within a care session, and upwards of 80% of patients have follow-up questions after a health encounter.
All of this supports the need to bring patients deeper into the care process and help empower them to take ownership over their health journey. This includes care decisions, but clinicians should also provide patients with information from a trusted, evidence-based source to help them answer questions and support their care journey at home. Ideally, this source should also align with evidence referenced by all members of the care team to help support collaborative decision-making and care.
The expanding care team includes patients
Care teams are expanding role ownership to support staffing and burnout challenges, creating the need for shared resources across teams. Shared decision-support information can benefit team-based care in scenarios such as low-acuity illnesses, diagnostics of new symptoms, chronic and preventative care, and care coordination.
The UpToDate® clinical decision support platform has seen an expansion of the care team over the past several years. Traditionally thought of as “by doctors for doctors,” the percentage of growth across the care team continues to expand. From 2019-2024, the share of users outside the traditional physician and medical resident grew from 28.5% to 31.5%, with the greatest increases among nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and physician assistants.
As the care team expands, so does the need to include the patient in care conversations. Viewing the patient as a co-equal part of the care team—instead of centering the care team around the patient—creates the opportunity to include them as decision-makers and active participants in their care plans. At the center should be a shared source of evidence to keep all participants aligned, tailored for the care team and patient needs.
