Promise and perils of patient decision aids for reducing low-value care

Recognition of excessive waste and harm in health systems has prompted efforts to reduce low-value care, which has been defined as ‘use of an intervention where evidence suggests it confers no or very little benefit on patients, or risk of harm exceeds likely benefit, or, more broadly, the added costs of the intervention do not provide proportional added benefits’.1 The development and distribution of patient decision aids (and the related...