Temporal characteristics of decisions in hospital encounters: a threshold for shared decision making?
Clinical decisions related to a patient-physician encounter spanned a time frame exceeding the duration of the encounter. While a distribution of decisions over time and space fosters sharing and dilution of responsibility between providers, it makes the decision making process hard to access for patients.
These longitudinal patterns highlight the dramatic turnover of microbial communities on surfaces in regular contact with human skin. By uncovering these longitudinal patterns, this study promotes a better understanding of microbe-human interactions within the built environment.