The Connection Between Evidence-Based Medicine and Shared Decision Making

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) and shared decision making (SDM) are both essential to quality health care, yet the interdependence between these 2 approaches is not generally appreciated. Evidence-based medicine should begin and end with the patient: after finding and appraising the evidence and integrating its inferences with their expertise, clinicians attempt a decision that reflects their patient’s values and circumstances. Incorporating patient values, preferences, and circumstances is probably the most difficult and poorly mapped step—yet it receives the least attention.¹ This has led to a common criticism that EBM ignores patients’ values and preferences—explicitly not its intention.²