Patient safety and the importance of informed consent

Abstract

Safety of the patients in health care is a subject that has received significant attention over the last decade. This attention stemmed from the realization that human beings are bound to make errors. However, these errors can be considerably decreased if systems are changed appropriately. Multiple factors have been identified for reducing errors and improving safe practices in clinical care. One of these factors is procurement of well-understood informed consent, especially from patients having language barriers or low health literacy. In order to achieve this objective, various methods have been suggested. “Teach-back”� is one such method, where patients or family members are requested to teach the health-care providers, in their own words, what they have understood during the consent process. This and other measures used to procure a well-understood informed consent have shown a significant decrease in the incidence of medical errors, leading to safer health care for patients and providers. There might be logistic problems in obtaining consent from some of the patients, but for the delivery of safe health care, a well-understood informed consent is mandatory.