CHSPR Public Seminar: Incorporating Preferences into Health Care Decisions: Giving a Voice to Patients and the Public

March 29, 2012 12:00 PM

Many decisions in health care hinge of trade-offs between costs and benefits. Provincial drug benefit committees making resource allocation decisions have to judge whether the additional health benefits of new medications outweigh the additional costs. Physicians making clinical decisions must decide if the benefits of a therapeutic option outweigh the harms. In such situations, evidence alone is insufficient and preferences form a crucial component in making high quality decisions. However, experts (committee members, physicians) commonly use their own preferences even though evidence suggests these serve as poor proxies for patients and the public. This presentation will describe some recent methodological advances for integrating preferences of the public into population decisions, and some more conceptual ideas for integrating individual preferences into clinical decisions.

Speaker: Nick Bansback, UBC School of Population and Public Health

Nick Bansback joined the School of Population and Public Health in 2012. He obtained his PhD from the University of Sheffield, UK. His program of research seeks inform policies and practices in health through the application of decision theory.

Room 491

2206 East Mall, UBC