Certification

Patient decision aids are designed to help people participate confidently in decisions that affect their health and well being. However, with so many of them being produced around the world, it can be difficult to know whether a given decision aid is truly a reliable and actionable source of health information.

The International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration is striving to rectify this problem. It’s a group of researchers, practitioners and stakeholders from around the world working to establish an internationally approved set of criteria to verify the quality of patient decision aids. They approach this issue in an interdisciplinary manner, and bring great credibility and scientific integrity to the task. The Foundation believes this work is critical, and endorses the concept of establishing specific criteria decision aids must meet to be considered valid for patient use. Learn more about IPDAS at http://ipdas.ohri.ca/.

In addition, the Ottawa Health Research Institute offers several resources to help patients and clinicians learn more about patient decision aids. Along with decision aids and toolkits for providers, the Ottawa Personal Decision Guide is available to help patients assess decision-making needs, plan next steps and track their progress. To visit the site and access their tools, go to http://decisionaid.ohri.ca/.