Society for Medical Decision Making

Ralph Hertwig, PhD, MA
Beyond Nudging: How to Boost Medical Decision Making
Monday, June 13, 2016

Current discourse on how policy makers should apply insights from the social and behavioral sciences to better serve the public interest and improve decisions about health, wealth and happiness frequently focuses on the notion of nudging. Nudging bets that changing people's choice architecture will alter their otherwise detrimental behaviors in positive and predictable ways. In this talk, I will be concerned with policy interventions that do not nudge but boost, that is, extend people's decision-making competence rather than co-opting their deficits. I will discuss boosts taken from the domains of diagnostic inference, surrogate decision making, patient communication and dietary choices.

 

Speaker Biography
Ralph Hertwig is the Director of the Center of Adaptive Rationality (ARC) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Before joining the MPI in 2012, Hertwig was a professor for cognitive and decision sciences and dean at the University of Basel, Psychology Department. Among other topics, he has examined models of boundedly rational decision strategies, smart methods to foster good decisions ("boosts"), and learning and experienced-based decision making. He has published in Science, Psychological Review, Psychological Bulletin and Psychological Science and numerous other journals.

Mark L. Graber, MD, FACP
Diagnosis - The Ultimate Test of Medical Decision Making
Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Diagnosis may be the most complex cognitive task humans face. As the ultimate test of medical decision making, are we passing or failing? We now understand some of the cognitive factors that lead to successful diagnosis, as well as the cognitive origins of diagnostic error. The presentation will emphasize the challenges clinicians face in optimizing diagnosis, and the key areas where researchers could help advance the quest to improve the diagnostic process.

Speaker Biography
Mark L. Graber, MD, FACP is a Senior Fellow at RTI International, Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and President of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. Dr. Graber is a national leader in the field of patient safety and originated Patient Safety Awareness Week in 2002, an event now recognized internationally. He is also a pioneer in efforts to address diagnostic errors in medicine. In 2008 he originated the Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference series, in 2011 he founded the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, and in 2014 he launched a new journal, DIAGNOSIS, devoted to improving the quality and safety of diagnosis, and reducing diagnostic error. Dr. Graber received the 2014 John M Eisenberg Award from The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum, recognizing individual achievement advancing patient safety.