Reconceptualizing the Informed Consent Process at Eight Innovative Hospitals

The principle of informed consent—that patients have the right to participate in decisions about their own health care—is a widely accepted tenet of ethics and law. Yet hospitals are challenged to make informed consent understandable not only for their general patient base, but also for the more than 100 million patients with limited literacy, health literacy, or English proficiency, including recent immigrants and the elderly. A new Commonwealth Fund–supported article, "Reconceptualizing the Informed Consent Process at Eight Innovative Hospitals" (The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, Mar. 2008), describes the move toward a more patient-centered model of informed consent, and the obstacles encountered, at selected hospitals. "Our case study approach allows us to explore informed consent dilemmas at institutions that have given these issues a great deal of thought and attention," say authors Jennifer Matiasek, M.S., and Matthew K. Wynia, M.D., M.P.H., of the American Medical Association.