"There's evidence that the best way to decrease the chance for a lawsuit is full
disclosure, full transparency and a real patient-centered approach," says Bruce
Ramshaw, MD, FACS, co-director of Advanced Hernia Solutions and chief med-
ical officer of Surgical Momentum in Daytona Beach, Fla.
To Dr. Ramshaw, that means putting videos on thumb drives for patients who
want them. "We typically record surgeries for clinical quality improvement and
education purposes," he says. "But if a patient or family says they'd like to have
it, we'll give it to them. They're very appreciative."
"It's a nice option," agrees Timothy Bonatus, DO, medical director of surgical
services at Flagstaff Medical (Ariz.) Center, adding that a relatively small per-
centage of patients take him up on the offer. "We started doing it a long time
ago. People were enamored of the fact that they could have photographs or —
and this really dates it — a VHS tape of their arthroscopy. Now it's a disk or a
flash drive."
And the fear that such a video will end up as lawsuit fodder? "I guess it could,"
he says. "Maybe we're just not that paranoid. We've been doing it now for 20 years
and it's never been an issue."
Nor, says Dr. Ramshaw, are HIPAA-related concerns valid. "HIPAA doesn't say
you can't share," he points out. "In fact, it says we should regularly share every-
thing with the patient and family and that whatever we do should be accessible
to them."
Or as Dr. Bonatus puts it, "We make it clear we're passing the responsibili-
ty on to them: It's your protected healthcare information. If you choose to
upload it onto Facebook, that's your business."
Those patients may also get better care down the road, says Dr. Bonatus.
"When I get a patient who's been treated by someone else, if they have a video
or even just pictures of the previous procedure, it's really helpful."
1 8 S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E January 2015
