Our beginnings
Hello, and welcome to ConsentCare
I am very proud today to introduce ConsentCare, a free online service for doctors anywhere in the world to take fully informed consent for surgical procedures from their patients.
There is more to this than just another useful Internet service. Please allow me to explain.
Seeing the challenge
The idea behind ConsentCare stems from conflict. Most healthcare systems anywhere in the world have been struggling with issues around cost, managed healthcare, doctors’ rights and obligations, and patients’ rights and obligations for a long time indeed. The finer ethical considerations of medical practice, be they in private or public health, have in most cases been strongly influenced, if not overwhelmed, by business considerations.
In a fit of frustration some years ago I wrote an open letter voicing my frustration with healthcare funders and managed healthcare. To my surprise, my email was forwarded widely, attracting media interest, and provoking an emphatic response from one funder. It still surfaces from time to time. My protagonism went on for a while, but other than a bit of public argument, nothing really changed.
My letter was written at a time in my country when funders first became truly aware of the negative consequences of public antagonism by doctors. As a medical fraternity we have seen a definite change in attitude for the better over the past three years, an awareness by business that profits must come at someone’s expense, and at present it is the patient and health professional that bear those costs. But it is still not enough. The allure of the medical profession is no longer what it was. Doctors and other health personnel remain disillusioned. Patients don’t get the treatment they are entitled to or deserve. It is a situation that is unsustainable in the long term, and big business realizes it.
I also began to see that we doctors ourselves share the blame. We have accepted remunerative arrangements that have no bearing on our worth. A fundamental market force has come into play, namely that low markups demand high volumes for economic survival. A surgeon receiving most of his income from doing surgery has a strong incentive to operate, and I do not believe even the most ethical of surgeons is completely immune to these forces. I am still under subtle pressure to operate as much as I can. My livelihood depends on surgery. It is a perverse aspect of healthcare funding that I do not think has ever been adequately addressed, i.e. that doctors have a stronger financial interest in the sick, than in the healthy!
At the time, the funder industry published reports stating that in their opinions up to 30% of money spent on private healthcare in my country was spent ‘unnecessarily.’ Overt fraud accounted for up to half that amount. Whatever the exact figure, overservicing clearly remains a serious problem in our healthcare system.
Protagonism had not done anything to change the situation, and I decided to move towards constructive intervention, to be part of the solution rather than just bemoaning the problems.
Moving towards a solution
Over time an idea was born that had the potential of enhancing a public and transparent impression of a doctor’s practice, in the eyes of funders, patients and medical colleagues. This idea would assist the practices of those doctors already concerned about ethical practice, and protect them with good documentation of their decision making processes. In return, those doctors’ patients would be treated preferentially by their funders in terms of payment of the doctors’ fees. Overservicing would, in theory at least, no longer be ‘necessary’ or easily done, given that patients were empowered in the process.
It is a bold and ambitious idea. The consent process was chosen because it is an area that most doctors find difficult to do completely, and almost impossible to document until now. It is a process when done properly that protects both doctor and patient. It enhances patient care, improves outcomes, and improves patient safety. There is no sensible argument against full and complete compliance with the ethical and legal demands of fully informed consent. What’s more, there were very few other systems that have attempted this, and certainly none that would be free to the individual doctor. There seemed no other way, using modern technology, to even begin to make the changes that the dysfunctional healthcare system appears to need.
What is more, the consent process is the perfect opportunity to draw patients into the digital world.
ConsentCare may be the first contact a patient has with the world of interactive healthcare IT, an ideal introduction into the world of digital communication, with a wealth of added functions to follow.
If a surgeon takes consent using the web, and his patient can access the web at anytime thereafter, and ask questions, it is very little extra effort to initiate automated web-based follow up questionnaires and audit systems. Patient care is enhanced.
The ‘web’ provides exactly that, a web of connections, all of which can be brought into play in the consent process, involving hospitals, funders, surgical suppliers, patient support groups, specialists and family physicians. The potential of improving healthcare is enormous.
In a time of rocketing healthcare costs and time constraints, not to mention increasing litigation, can we afford not to use IT technology to enhance the work we do?
We have been extremely careful throughout development of ConsentCare to have the opinions and advice of prominent academic and sociopolitical figures in the healthcare arena, guiding us through the ethical and medicolegal minefields.
Throughout, our Board of Advisors, all leaders in their respective fields, has been especially encouraging voicing a moral and ethical imperative to see a system like ours become available and for it to succeed.
An invitation
We want our ConsentCare system to make a real contribution to practicing better medicine - and for that we need the input and feedback of leading doctors from around the globe in making changes and improvements.
If you are that kind of doctor, eager to be part of this initiative towards a better era in medical practice, we invite you to take the tour, send us your subscription details, and start using the system. Please don’t forget your feedback – this is critical! And please spread the word about our service.
Dr Martin Young
I am very proud today to introduce ConsentCare, a free online service for doctors anywhere in the world to take fully informed consent for surgical procedures from their patients.
There is more to this than just another useful Internet service. Please allow me to explain.
Seeing the challenge
The idea behind ConsentCare stems from conflict. Most healthcare systems anywhere in the world have been struggling with issues around cost, managed healthcare, doctors’ rights and obligations, and patients’ rights and obligations for a long time indeed. The finer ethical considerations of medical practice, be they in private or public health, have in most cases been strongly influenced, if not overwhelmed, by business considerations.
In a fit of frustration some years ago I wrote an open letter voicing my frustration with healthcare funders and managed healthcare. To my surprise, my email was forwarded widely, attracting media interest, and provoking an emphatic response from one funder. It still surfaces from time to time. My protagonism went on for a while, but other than a bit of public argument, nothing really changed.
My letter was written at a time in my country when funders first became truly aware of the negative consequences of public antagonism by doctors. As a medical fraternity we have seen a definite change in attitude for the better over the past three years, an awareness by business that profits must come at someone’s expense, and at present it is the patient and health professional that bear those costs. But it is still not enough. The allure of the medical profession is no longer what it was. Doctors and other health personnel remain disillusioned. Patients don’t get the treatment they are entitled to or deserve. It is a situation that is unsustainable in the long term, and big business realizes it.
I also began to see that we doctors ourselves share the blame. We have accepted remunerative arrangements that have no bearing on our worth. A fundamental market force has come into play, namely that low markups demand high volumes for economic survival. A surgeon receiving most of his income from doing surgery has a strong incentive to operate, and I do not believe even the most ethical of surgeons is completely immune to these forces. I am still under subtle pressure to operate as much as I can. My livelihood depends on surgery. It is a perverse aspect of healthcare funding that I do not think has ever been adequately addressed, i.e. that doctors have a stronger financial interest in the sick, than in the healthy!
At the time, the funder industry published reports stating that in their opinions up to 30% of money spent on private healthcare in my country was spent ‘unnecessarily.’ Overt fraud accounted for up to half that amount. Whatever the exact figure, overservicing clearly remains a serious problem in our healthcare system.
Protagonism had not done anything to change the situation, and I decided to move towards constructive intervention, to be part of the solution rather than just bemoaning the problems.
Moving towards a solution
Over time an idea was born that had the potential of enhancing a public and transparent impression of a doctor’s practice, in the eyes of funders, patients and medical colleagues. This idea would assist the practices of those doctors already concerned about ethical practice, and protect them with good documentation of their decision making processes. In return, those doctors’ patients would be treated preferentially by their funders in terms of payment of the doctors’ fees. Overservicing would, in theory at least, no longer be ‘necessary’ or easily done, given that patients were empowered in the process.
It is a bold and ambitious idea. The consent process was chosen because it is an area that most doctors find difficult to do completely, and almost impossible to document until now. It is a process when done properly that protects both doctor and patient. It enhances patient care, improves outcomes, and improves patient safety. There is no sensible argument against full and complete compliance with the ethical and legal demands of fully informed consent. What’s more, there were very few other systems that have attempted this, and certainly none that would be free to the individual doctor. There seemed no other way, using modern technology, to even begin to make the changes that the dysfunctional healthcare system appears to need.
What is more, the consent process is the perfect opportunity to draw patients into the digital world.
ConsentCare may be the first contact a patient has with the world of interactive healthcare IT, an ideal introduction into the world of digital communication, with a wealth of added functions to follow.
If a surgeon takes consent using the web, and his patient can access the web at anytime thereafter, and ask questions, it is very little extra effort to initiate automated web-based follow up questionnaires and audit systems. Patient care is enhanced.
The ‘web’ provides exactly that, a web of connections, all of which can be brought into play in the consent process, involving hospitals, funders, surgical suppliers, patient support groups, specialists and family physicians. The potential of improving healthcare is enormous.
In a time of rocketing healthcare costs and time constraints, not to mention increasing litigation, can we afford not to use IT technology to enhance the work we do?
We have been extremely careful throughout development of ConsentCare to have the opinions and advice of prominent academic and sociopolitical figures in the healthcare arena, guiding us through the ethical and medicolegal minefields.
Throughout, our Board of Advisors, all leaders in their respective fields, has been especially encouraging voicing a moral and ethical imperative to see a system like ours become available and for it to succeed.
An invitation
We want our ConsentCare system to make a real contribution to practicing better medicine - and for that we need the input and feedback of leading doctors from around the globe in making changes and improvements.
If you are that kind of doctor, eager to be part of this initiative towards a better era in medical practice, we invite you to take the tour, send us your subscription details, and start using the system. Please don’t forget your feedback – this is critical! And please spread the word about our service.
Dr Martin Young