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IDEAS THAT WORK
video, tell them what to expect so that the known imprecisions intrinsic to medical procedures that are within the standard of care
do not cause false alarm. If you're concerned about the medicallegal risk exposure of recorded videos being discoverable in a potential malpractice claim, you can declare a priori that videos are recorded solely for quality improvement purposes, and thus they are
likely not discoverable by plaintiff's attorneys in the same way that morbidity and mortality conference proceedings aren't discoverable.
So much of surgery today is performed using sophisticated video
equipment, but the record button is often turned off. The potential to harness the data in these videos and drive quality improvement
may be substantial. Given the modern capacity for data storage, incorporating procedure videos into a patient's electronic health
record could be considered as routine as keeping computed tomography scan
images.
Martin Makary,
MD, MPH
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Baltimore, Md.
mmakary1@jhmi.edu
