Computer accessible methods for establishing certifiable...

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Reexamination Certificate

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C705S003000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06516300

ABSTRACT:

I. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods for establishing informed consent to a medical procedure, particularly for medical procedures such as a hysterectomy, a blood transfusion, AIDS/HIV treatment, psychiatric treatment, dental procedures, anesthesia, and the like. More specifically, the present invention relates to interactive methods for establishing within a predetermined probability that a patient, or his/her guardian, has understood the disclosed information regarding the medical procedure.
II. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Virtually every medical procedure performed in the United States, including psychiatric treatment and dental procedures, requires that the patient consent to the procedure. This consent may either be expressed or implied. A competent adult patient can implicitly consent to a procedure by his/her situation or his/her actions. Examples of this type of consent would include certain emergencies and typical physical examinations. Consent to such procedures is implied by the patient. While it is frequently deemed acceptable, it is not the type of consent preferred by the medical community and is to be avoided where possible.
Expressed consent is preferred by the medical community. At present, expressed consent is usually oral or written. The inherent difficulty in proving details with respect to oral consent makes this type of expressed consent less preferable for most health care providers. Using existing techniques, many non-emergency type surgical procedures require the patient to read and sign an “informed consent” form. Admittedly, this can be awkward; it is well established, however. For example, the “Operating Room Administration Manual—checklists, Guidelines & Forms” includes a checklist of clauses which may be included in the typical written consent form. In addition, a list of medical procedures requiring full disclosure is included as Exhibit 30-3 to this reference. These procedures, among many others, are deemed to require not merely consent, but informed consent.
The author of an article discussing surgical informed consent suggests to establish legally-sufficient informed consent, at least three elements are required: (1) sufficient information in understandable terms, (2) competence on the part of the patient to reason, and (3) absence of coercion. (This reference, disclosed below, contains much authoritative material on the subject of informed consent.)
These legal requirements can be burdensome to the medical practitioner. Not only does complying with such requirements take time, but the constantly changing state of the law makes merely remaining current in this developing field a challenge. When properly fulfilled, it is even possible that the health care provider could spend more time obtaining consent to avoid lawsuits than practicing medicine. The present invention is designed to alleviate this imposition on medical personnel by providing a method of establishing certifiable informed consent. The disclosed system and methods improve the ability of achieving an “informed” state, the credibility of having received “consent”, and enhance the ability to prove in a court of law that informed consent was indeed established, should it be necessary.
For many years the only device used to indicate possible informed consent was a standard form, as mentioned previously. In some instances the form served as a reference guide for the practitioner as he/she read from it to the patient. In other instances the form might have been handed to the patient along with a multitude of other forms, each requiring the patient's signature. It is very likely that, in haste, many of these informed consent forms are signed without ever having been read; even more likely is the fact that such forms are rarely truly understood by the patient. One study has shown that on the average patients read 4.6 grade levels below their reported highest grade completed. The mean reading level in some communities was reported as low as third grade, with consent forms requiring a postcollege reading level (
Southern Medical Journal
, October 1991, vol. 84, p. 1172). This combined with the possible recklessness on the part of the patient, as well as the medical provider, fueled by the litigious nature of our society, has contributed to the skyrocketing malpractice insurance fees experienced by many health care providers. These are, naturally, passed on to the patient in the way of higher medical fees charges. Most acutely however, the signed informed consent form technique has failed in its primary purpose. Often it has not been deemed to sufficiently establish true “informed consent” by the patient.
To overcome this potential impact, written forms are often accompanied by a verbal explanation or interview by the health care provider. This solution is undesirable for at least two reasons. First, it reintroduces the oral element in obtaining a consent. Second, unfortunately, informed consent interview techniques are not an area focused upon by most medical schools. Instead, new practitioners are usually expected to observe, assimilate, and personalize what other colleagues do. While to a patient this interview may be no less important than the procedure itself, the health care provider may view it as a bothersome task that has little relevance to the procedure to be performed.
Even the standard informed consent forms currently used have often fatal practical limitations. They can be inconsistently applied. Typically the forms are modified for each specific medical, dental or psychiatric procedure. While this is efficient, it rarely takes into account the impacts of the differing information to be conveyed, the differing manners in which it must be delivered (if read), and the differing attitudes of the patient. Each of these naturally affect the dependability of the form. In addition, as each doctor tries to alter a general form for a specific procedure, personal biases can detract from the real goal of the process. Even if each of these limitations were recognized, until the present invention, it simply would not have been practical to tailor a document not only doctor to doctor, but also from day to day, and from patient mood to patient mood. This latter aspect—that a given patient might have different needs from day to day or hour to hour—has been an aspect that, until the present invention, those skilled in the art could not readily address. Those skilled in the art, the doctors and lawyers, simply believed it was not possible to accommodate the needs of the patient to this degree. While the need for controlled consistency in this area has been openly sought by consumer protection groups, medical groups, and malpractice insurance carriers, until the present invention it was not deemed practical to attempt to utilize a technique which could be varied to suit each specific occasion.
In order to meet these needs, the present invention utilizes techniques not traditionally applied to the informed consent field. Among these techniques is the use of video technology. The use of video as a training tool has been known and widely accepted in a number of fields. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,360,345 and 4,907,973, both to Hon, disclose the use of computer/video systems for teaching health and medical education. U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,114 to Barwick discloses the use of video to teach communication skills, while U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,371 to Hall has applications in law enforcement training and military training. As the present invention recognizes, the video system's ability to provide consistency through controlled presentation can be beneficially applied to the informed consent field as well. Video tape (VHS or beta) and video disk systems have been used in some hospitals, clinics and doctor offices, functioning to educate patients on a limited number of medical procedures. None, however are used to address the very important aspect of certifying or proving the patient had, without question, given his or her informed consent. Given this known use of such a system, it mi

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