Introduction: Informed consent is the cornerstone of ethical medical practice, particularly in neurosurgery, where interventions can have profound and lasting effects on a patient's physical and cognitive well-being. Failure to obtain informed consent can lead to grave consequences, including legal action, professional repercussions, and a tarnished reputation for the surgeon. The current standard at many institutions is a paper form that patients sign, however, these forms do little to guarantee comprehension and are not designed to facilitate patient understanding. Therefore, there is a pressing need for a change which can address these shortcomings. This project aims to transform informed consent by creating an interactive, video-based process to enhance patient comprehension and streamline the process through electronic implementation.
Methods: We first conducted a comprehensive review of relevant literature to identify key components essential for effective informed consent. With this information, we designed a program that was built using HTML/JavaScript. Patients are able to access the consent process via hospital computers and once they are finished, the data is then automatically stored as a PDF file on our servers which can be imported into EPIC using their API.
Results: We conducted thorough testing of the software and found it to be free of any significant issues or bugs. Furthermore, ten volunteers tested and compared our new consent process to a traditional paper form and found our process easier to use and noted a better understanding of the information.
Conclusion : To ensure patient autonomy and protect healthcare providers, we've developed an improved informed consent process that empowers patients to make informed decisions. We're currently planning to implement this software at our hospital and plan to improve it based on patient and provider feedback. Furthermore, we are refining the program so that any institution that wants to use our project can easily do so with minimal changes.
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