Table 2 Definitions

Health consumers

Patients, potential patients, current and previous users of health services; parents, guardians or carers of patients; organisations representing consumers’ interests; members of the public who are targets of health promotion programs (adapted from ACSQHC [24], CHF [75])

Consumer representatives

Members of a committee, steering group, working party, panel or similar decision-making group who voices the consumer perspective and takes part in the process on behalf of consumers (adapted from CHF [75])

Community

Group of people sharing a common interest including cultural, social, political, health and economic interests and/or a geographic association (adapted from CHF [75])

Consumer engagement

Inclusion of consumers and/or community members in a continuum of activities from passive behaviours such as receiving information, through more active participation, to shared decision-making with equal power. These activities include, but are not limited to, provision of information, consultation, development, participation, collaboration and empowerment (adapted from Sarrami-Foroushani et al [31], O’Mara-Eves et al [33])

Communication

Consumers and/or community members are engaged through imparting or exchanging information. Information can be verbal, written or provided by other methods. Communication can go both ways between consumers and/or community members and health service staff

Consultation

Consumers and/or community members are engaged through requests to provide their views, preferences, comments and suggestions to inform the decision-making process, but the consumers and/or community members may not be engaged in subsequent decision-making or action (adapted from PICS [63], CHF [75])

Participation

Consumers and/or community members are engaged through meaningful involvement in decision-making processes for health policy and planning, healthcare management and service delivery, care and treatment, and the wellbeing of themselves and the community (adapted from Victorian Department of Human Services [28], CHF [75])

Consumer evidence

Consumer opinions, perspectives and preferences found in publications and data sources

Routine decisions

Decisions made on a recurring basis or scheduled via a timetable eg annual budget setting processes, six-monthly practice audits, monthly Therapeutics Committee meetings, reviews of protocols at specified intervals after their introduction, etc [13].

Reactive decisions

Decisions made in response to situations as they arise eg new legislation, product alerts and recalls, applications for new drugs to be included in the formulary, critical incidents, emerging problems, etc [13].

Proactive decisions

Decisions driven by information that was actively sought for this purpose eg accessing newly published synthesised research evidence such as Cochrane reviews to compare against current practice, interrogating routinely-collected datasets to ascertain practices with high costs or high rates of adverse events, etc [13].