What is Clinical Decision Making?

Key Message

Decisions can be fast, intuitive, analytical and evidence-based. We are all involved in decisions in life from the simple to the complex, those that deal with patients and clients to those that deal with our life outside work.

Decision making can range from fast, intuitive, or heuristic decisions through to well-reasoned, analytical, evidence-based decisions that drive patient and client care.

There is a spectrum of decision making - at one end of the spectrum we use our intuition and experience to make decisions, where there are typically a high volume of simple decisions to be made. At the other end of the spectrum, there may be complex decisions to be made, where the level of uncertainty is high and an analytical and evidence-based approach is needed to support the rules-based heuristics or experience we have gained over time in 'similar' situations.

An Effective Practitioner is tasked with making clinical decisions with patients and clients many times during their health and care journey. Clinical decision making is a balance of experience, awareness, knowledge and information gathering, using appropriate assessment tools, your colleagues and evidence-based practice to guide you.

Good decisions = safe care.