I had not seen this before, either, but I think it is heartening to know that this officially-sanctioned movement will include consumers as part of the action (and not just pay lip-service to their involvement, so to speak).

/anna

There is actually quite a bit on the concept of what is known as "shared decision making", and this is a new location for an old site. They used to be at http://www.cochraneconsumer.org . Shared decision making is a concept that was discussed in the MLA Guide, v. 1, chapter 7. For further information, I'd recommend:

Dartmouth Center for Shared Decision Making:
http://www.dhmc.org/webpage.cfm?site_id=2&org_id=108&gsec_id=0&sec_id=0&item_id=2486

DHMC: Resources:
http://www.dhmc.org/webpage.cfm?site_id=2&org_id=108&morg_id=0&sec_id=0&gsec_id=39700&item_id=39734

Pubmed search on this topic:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.proxy.lib.umich.edu/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=pubmed&details_term=%28%22physician-patient%20relations%22%5BMeSH%20Terms%5D%20OR%20*Physician-Patient%20Relations%5BText%20Word%5D%29%20AND%20%28%22patient%20participation%22%5BMeSH%20Terms%5D%20OR%20*Patient%20Participation%5BText%20Word%5D%29%20AND%20English%5Blang%5D%20AND%20%22humans%22%5BMeSH%20Terms%5D

Sorry! I read this backwards. Yes, this is a relatively unique and far reaching example of outreach from the medical profession to patients, involving patients in providing quality information to other patients. I know of several examples doing this at the level of individual diseases or at a local level, but this is the only example I know of that is broad in scope. I know patients who are involved with this project. The ones I know go to their patient communities and ask for thoughts and feedback and suggestions, and work very closely with the clinical team responsible for the topic. A very very cool concept.