Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review
Objective Digital technologies create opportunities for improvement of consenting processes in clinical care. Yet little is known about the prevalence, characteristics or outcomes of shifting from paper to electronic consenting, or e-consent, in clinical settings. Thus questions remain around e-cons...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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BMJ Publishing Group
2023-12-01
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| Series: | BMJ Health & Care Informatics |
| Online Access: | https://informatics.bmj.com/content/30/1/e100726.full |
| _version_ | 1797364551474216960 |
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| author | Konstantina Matsoukas Allison Lipitz-Snyderman Susan Chimonas Gilad Kuperman |
| author_facet | Konstantina Matsoukas Allison Lipitz-Snyderman Susan Chimonas Gilad Kuperman |
| author_sort | Konstantina Matsoukas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Objective Digital technologies create opportunities for improvement of consenting processes in clinical care. Yet little is known about the prevalence, characteristics or outcomes of shifting from paper to electronic consenting, or e-consent, in clinical settings. Thus questions remain around e-consent’s impact on efficiency, data integrity, user experience, care access, equity and quality. Our objective was to scope all known findings on this critical topic.Materials and methods Through an international, systematic scoping review, we identified and assessed all published findings on clinical e-consent in the scholarly and grey literatures, including consents for telehealth encounters, procedures and health information exchanges. From each relevant publication, we abstracted data on study design, measures, findings and other study features.Main outcome measures Metrics describing or evaluating clinical e-consent, including preferences for paper versus e-consenting; efficiency (eg, time, workload) and effectiveness (eg, data integrity, care quality). User characteristics were captured where available.Results A total of 25 articles published since 2005, most from North America or Europe, report on the deployment of e-consent in surgery, oncology and other clinical settings. Experimental designs and other study characteristics vary, but nearly all focus on procedural e-consents. Synthesis reveals relatively consistent findings around improved efficiency and data integrity with, and user preferences for, e-consent. Care access and quality issues are less frequently explored, with disparate findings.Discussion and conclusion The literature is nascent and largely focused on issues that are immediate and straightforward to measure. As virtual care pathways expand, more research is urgently needed to ensure that care quality and access are advanced, not compromised, by e-consent. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T16:36:53Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0c48c8282a084d73920f8d7995e0cff2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2632-1009 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T16:36:53Z |
| publishDate | 2023-12-01 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMJ Health & Care Informatics |
| spelling | doaj.art-0c48c8282a084d73920f8d7995e0cff22024-01-05T13:35:08ZengBMJ Publishing GroupBMJ Health & Care Informatics2632-10092023-12-0130110.1136/bmjhci-2022-100726Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping reviewKonstantina Matsoukas0Allison Lipitz-Snyderman1Susan Chimonas2Gilad Kuperman3MSK Library, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USADepartment of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USADepartment of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USAHealth Informatics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USAObjective Digital technologies create opportunities for improvement of consenting processes in clinical care. Yet little is known about the prevalence, characteristics or outcomes of shifting from paper to electronic consenting, or e-consent, in clinical settings. Thus questions remain around e-consent’s impact on efficiency, data integrity, user experience, care access, equity and quality. Our objective was to scope all known findings on this critical topic.Materials and methods Through an international, systematic scoping review, we identified and assessed all published findings on clinical e-consent in the scholarly and grey literatures, including consents for telehealth encounters, procedures and health information exchanges. From each relevant publication, we abstracted data on study design, measures, findings and other study features.Main outcome measures Metrics describing or evaluating clinical e-consent, including preferences for paper versus e-consenting; efficiency (eg, time, workload) and effectiveness (eg, data integrity, care quality). User characteristics were captured where available.Results A total of 25 articles published since 2005, most from North America or Europe, report on the deployment of e-consent in surgery, oncology and other clinical settings. Experimental designs and other study characteristics vary, but nearly all focus on procedural e-consents. Synthesis reveals relatively consistent findings around improved efficiency and data integrity with, and user preferences for, e-consent. Care access and quality issues are less frequently explored, with disparate findings.Discussion and conclusion The literature is nascent and largely focused on issues that are immediate and straightforward to measure. As virtual care pathways expand, more research is urgently needed to ensure that care quality and access are advanced, not compromised, by e-consent.https://informatics.bmj.com/content/30/1/e100726.full |
| spellingShingle | Konstantina Matsoukas Allison Lipitz-Snyderman Susan Chimonas Gilad Kuperman Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review BMJ Health & Care Informatics |
| title | Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review |
| title_full | Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review |
| title_fullStr | Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review |
| title_full_unstemmed | Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review |
| title_short | Electronic consent in clinical care: an international scoping review |
| title_sort | electronic consent in clinical care an international scoping review |
| url | https://informatics.bmj.com/content/30/1/e100726.full |
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