Informed Patient Choice/Informed Consent

The State of Washington now has, by statute, a process called Informed Patient Choice. Evidence that the physician explained the options to the patient, gave the patient videos to watch, had signed Informed Patient Choice, answered the patient's questions, and considered the patient's overall health status all weigh in to protect the physician from the tort of failure of informed consent.

The process of Informed Patient Choice also protects the patients, of course, by giving them a full voice in making decisions about medical procedures. Studies indicate that when patients are fully informed about their options, they often choose very differently from their physicians, i.e. patients are less likely to choose surgical intervention and/or expensive medical testing. Therefore, giving full consideration and participation to patients very likely will save millions, if not billions, of dollars in health care costs.

A Dartmouth Atlas White Paper, entitled An Agenda For Change: Improving Quality and Curbing Health Care Spending: Opportunitites for the Congress and the Obama Administration, states, "Failure to base the determination of medical necessity on informed patient choice leads to misuse of care, to what should be considered a form of medical error: operations on patients who, had they been adequately informed, and given a real chance to share in the decision-making, would not have consented to surgical treatment." In an earlier post, I referenced the tragic and appalling statistic: 50% of C-sections are not medically necessary (quoted from Mayor Bloomberg's speech to the New York State Bar earlier this year). Were all these women adequately informed and given the opportunity to share equally in the decision-making process?

I hope California will consider Informed Patient Choice in the very near future to promote safer health care and tremendous health care savings.