Clinicians' use of a palm-top based system to elicit patient preferences at the bedside: a feasible technique to improve patient outcomes.

While there is an increased emphasis on shared decision making between patients and clinicians, there has been little research on decision support systems (DSSs) to assist clinicians in eliciting and integrating patient preferences in clinical care and evaluating their effect on patient outcomes. This paper presents the results of nurses' use of CHOICE, a palm-top based DSS for preference-based care planning that assists nurses in eliciting patient preferences for functional performance at the bedside and to select care priorities consistent with patient preferences. Nurses' use of CHOICE changed nursing care to be more consistent with patient preferences and improved patients' preference achievement. The study demonstrated that the use of computer-based decision support for preference-based care planning can improve patient-centered care and patient outcomes.