Posts by Karen Sepucha, PhD
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Shared Decision-Making Tied to Better Outcomes in Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis
When Massachusetts General Hospital researchers provided a decision aid to all patients with hip or knee osteoarthritis before they consulted a surgeon, 68% met criteria for well-informed, patient-centered (IPC) decisions about treatment, and patients with knee osteoarthritis who made IPC decisions had better outcomes.
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Optimizing Decision Aids About Surgery for Hip or Knee Osteoarthritis
In the first comparative effectiveness trial of certified decision aids for treatment of hip and knee osteoarthritis, short, interactive decision aids outperformed long videos.
Biography
Karen Sepucha, PhD, is the director of the Health Decision Sciences Center in the General Medicine Division at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Her research and clinical interests involve developing and implementing tools and methods to improve the quality of significant medical decisions made by patients and clinicians. Dr. Sepucha was the medical editor for a series of five breast cancer patient decision aids (PtDAs) developed by the not-for-profit Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making.
The PtDAs have won seven media awards, and Dr. Sepucha has led the dissemination of these programs to dozens of academic and community cancer centers across the country.
She is also responsible for efforts to implement shared decision making tools into primary and specialty care at Partners HealthCare. Her recent research has focused on the development of instruments to measure the quality of decisions.
The decision quality instruments have been used in a national survey of medical decisions, and a subset of the items is being evaluated for use in CAHPS as part of the primary care medical home certification.
Dr. Sepucha has been active in local, national and international efforts to improve decision quality, including the International Patient Decision Aids Standards collaboration.
She has her PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research at Stanford University, with a focus in decision sciences.
Orthopaedic Care at Mass General
At Mass General, our world-class physicians and surgeons treat the full spectrum of musculoskeletal conditions throughout the body, from sprains and strains on the athletic field to carpal tunnel syndrome. Our team offers innovative, research-based treatments that range from limb-saving oncological procedures to complex spinal reconstruction.