Core skills of decision making
Good, effective clinical decision making requires a combination of experience and skills. These skills include:
- Pattern recognition: learning from experience.
- Critical Thinking: removing emotion from our reasoning, being 'sceptical', with the ability to clarify goals, examine assumptions, be open-minded, recognise personal attitudes and bias, able to evaluate evidence.
- Communication Skills: active listening - the ability to listen to the patient, what they say - what they don't say, their story, their experiences and their wishes thus enabling a patient-centred approach that embraces self-management; information provision - the ability to provide information in a comprehensible way to allow patients/clients, their carers and family to be involved in the decision making process.
- Evidence-based approaches: using available evidence and best practice guidelines as part of the decision making process.
- Team work: using the gathered evidence to enlist help, support and advice from colleagues and the wider multi-disciplinary team. It's important to liaise with colleagues, listen and be respectful, whilst also being persistent when you need support so that you can plan as a team when necessary.
- Sharing: your learning and getting feedback from colleagues on your decision making.
- Reflection: using feedback from others, and the outcomes of the decisions to reflect on the decisions that were taken in order to enhance practice delivery in the future. It's also important to reflect on your whole decision making strategies to ensure that you hone your decision making skills and learn from experience.