ATLANTA – Medical malpractice suits and wrong-site surgeries could be avoided with the use of better informed consent and general consent forms. But many hospitals and physician offices still use paper to obtain patient permission for surgeries.
Atlanta-based Dialog Medical’s iMedConsent software, which supports the Joint Commission standards for informed consent, targets that issue.
The software includes procedure-specific consent forms for more than 2,000 medical and surgical procedures, patient education documents for thousands of diagnoses and treatments and an anatomical image gallery that allows the physician to annotate images and simplify complex topics for the patient. In addition, the application automates the completion of patient documentation ranging from HIPAA disclosures to advance directives, including the digital capture of signatures, paperless storage of signed documents and electronic notation in the patient’s medical record.
In a review of 28 orthopedic surgery lawsuits published in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, alleging inadequate informed consent, the average legal expense for each case was $59,498 and the average jury award was $148,279.
Researchers said that if consent had been obtained in the doctor’s office, instead of the preoperative holding area, the physician and hospital would avoid $322,482 in potential legal expenses and indemnity payouts.
The extra note that iMedConsent embeds in the patient’s medical record could also help to avoid $454,100 in potential legal expenses, company officials say.
All 155 American VA hospitals have used the solution since May 2004; the University of Miami’s Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine is integrating iMedConsent to mirror the systems at the VA hospitals.
“This software tool is going to allow us to do more accurate and procedure-specific informed consent,” stated David Arnold, MD, assistant professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and member of the Head and Neck Cancer Site Disease Group at UM/Sylvester.
The old paper system sometimes leads to missing dates, times and required signatures, according to Steven E. Stark, assistant general counsel in the Office of The General Counsel at the University of Miami.
“Everyone agrees with the concept of iMedConsent,” said Stark. “It makes the nurses’ job easier and it’s getting physicians to utilize this on a regular basis.”
“It’s not appropriate for anyone except the doctor doing the procedure or a resident physician to get the patient’s signature on these forms,” Stark added. “This is an incredibly important process.”
The forms show the patient his or her rights, help answer questions and make it easier for physicians to point things out that may or may not go wrong.
“It’s a safety thing. It’s a good starting point to have conversations if things happen,” Stark said.
“Many hospitals buy iMedConsent because they want to do a better job with the consent and want to improve patient safety,” said Tim Kelly, vice president of marketing at Dialog Medical.
He also pointed out that Wellpoint insurance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will no longer pay for 11 “never events”, another good reason to implement iMedConsent.