Yaara Zisman-Ilani

Yaara Zisman-Ilani is an expert in shared decision-making research and practice. Her research involves investigating the processes of shared decision making in mental health, focusing on patients with serious mental illness and psychosis in inpatient, outpatient, and community settings. She has dedicated more than 15 years to designing, implementing, and evaluating shared decision-making interventions and decision aid tools to improve patient-clinician interactions; to support patient empowerment, activation, and self-determination; and to support engagement of patients in their own care. She has expertise in developing decision aids, decision support tools, and other shared decision-making interventions for individuals with mental illnesses for medical and non-medical decisions. She is also experienced in developing shared decision-making measures. She has broadened her expertise and translated her skill set to include additional patient populations, including women, mothers, individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), substance use disorder (SUD), and Crohn's disease, while also highlighting patients from underserved ethnic/racial minority groups. In addition to her research experience and expertise, she brings to the table lived experiences as an ethnic and racial minority immigrant, a woman and a mother, as well as out-of-the-box international and national perspective on patient-centered research.