Emily Oster feature!

The decision aid was featured in Dr. Emily Oster’s newsletter, ParentData! Here’s the quote about it:

Each year about 600,000 people in the US have an induction of labor without a medical indication.  The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Nurse Midwives, and researchers on all sides of this issue all agree that shared decision-making should be used when counseling pregnant people on this topic. That means they think pregnant people be informed of their options and the evidence and then they should ultimately decide how their labor starts.  But right now, that's now how many people experience it.

So, for my DrPH dissertation project, I tried to make shared decision-making happen on this topic. I formed a core group of providers (an OB, a family medicine physician, and two midwives) and we created an initial prototype of a shared decision-making tool and process.  We recruited a larger group of providers (OBs, midwives, and nurse practitioners) to test the tool and process in three languages because we wanted to solve for inequities in who gets to experience shared decision-making.  Once the tool was in use, I interviewed a very diverse group of pregnant people who experienced it to get feedback on the tool and assess whether or not shared decision-making was happening.  After we had some clear improvement themes from the interviews we revised the tool and tested the next version.  We did this three times - until we were making very minor changes to it and were hearing consistently positive experiences using the tool.  I also talked to providers during each testing cycle.  Many of the pregnant people I interviewed described using the tool as "awesome" and "empowering" and providers said it improved the quality of their care and reduced bias.  Our study team is working to publish our process and results in a peer-reviewed journal but in the meantime, I know a tool on this topic has been called for by many so we wanted to share it: www.inductiondecisionaid.org

Read the full newsletter here.