Assessing the Benefit of a Personalized EHR‐Generated Informed Consent in a Dental School Setting

Abstract

Informed consents are routinely used as an important source of information to help patients make appropriate clinical decisions. However, current standard consent forms may not accomplish their intended purpose due to the variety of patient literacy and experiences and, in the dental school setting, the developing competence of students. The purpose of this pilot study was to test the eficacy of a personalized informed consent generated through an electronic health record (EHR) at one dental school and its role in patient decision making. In the study, a set of informed consents, or SmartConsents, were developed for speciic diagnoses and procedures, enhanced with graphics, and delivered through the school's EHR. Fifty patients were recruited in the school's Urgent Care Clinic and divided evenly into two groups: one (control) receiving the standard consent, with the second receiving a SmartConsent. Following treatment, patients were assessed based on demographics, decisional conlict, satisfaction, health literacy, and knowledge. Overall, there were no signiicant differences in main effects between SmartConsent and standard informed consents for decisional conlict and satisfaction, although signiicant differences were identiied during secondary analysis of satisfaction, gender, and ethnicity. The study also demonstrated the potential for consents to aid the student provider in better communicating with patients.

Big Data and Digitalization in Dentistry: A Systematic Review of the Ethical Issues

“…Cvrkel [41], in the context of mHealth, suggested deflecting the discussion from privacy concerns to the development of high-quality consent practices for both clinical as well as secondary research use. On the basis of a recent study by Valenza et al [62], which assessed the benefits of "Smart consent" strategies that take into account patients' preferences and desires regarding both treatment and the use of their dental data, we argue that the implementation of better consent policies and strategies could also be beneficial to electronic dental records in order to face not only privacy issues related to clinical care, but also issues of consent related to secondary use of data.…”

Informed Consent in Dentistry

“…91 Thus the evidence suggests that the informed consent process can be augmented and improved with interventions, though efforts to do so in a dental urgent treatment setting did not produce differences in decisional conflict or satisfaction when comparing a standard consent format and a personalized informed consent. 92 Dentists may be left asking how they can adequately meet their obligation to engage patients in the informed consent process a question that has received a great deal of attention in the medical literature.…”

Screening the use of informed consent forms prior to procedures involving operative dentistry: ethical aspects

“… 6 , 7 After carefully reading and understanding this document, the patient should voluntarily sign it, agreeing with the exposed information. 8 Clearly, the informed consent represents a symbol of autonomy given to the patient in relation to the dental treatment, 9 , 10 and contributes to a better relation between the patient and dentist. 11 , 12…”