Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust staff and patients are enjoying improved decision making and consent confirmation for a wide range of medical treatments following the introduction of the eConsent software solution.
eConsent recently went live at Liverpool Women’s, a specialist hospital providing care for women, babies and families in conjunction with its new Electronic Patient Record.
The hospital has launched the Magentus solution to enhance information sharing and consent confirmation across more than 100 different procedures in a range of medical specialties.
The cloud-hosted solution will support about 1,150 clinical users and ensure patients have been fully informed and consented to planned procedures at the hospital, which delivers over 7,500 babies every year as well as carrying out around 50,000 gynaecological procedures.
The digitised consent process allows patients to receive all the information they need ahead of the procedure and helps them understand all the risks and benefits before making a decision.
This means consultations can focus on the patient rather than on filling out the consent form. The system also can ensure that consent is obtained by people who are trained to explain the specific procedure.
Richard Glynn-Jones, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust programme manager, said: “eConsent is improving patient experiences, saving consultant time and standardising the information delivered during the consent to treatment process. The digital service supports shared decision making by clinicians and compliance with General Medical Council guidelines requiring doctors to ensure patients are aware of all risks.
“Patients can now review their digital consent form and information leaflets in their own time, signing it at home or by attending a scheduled virtual clinic with their clinician.”
eConsent enables consent forms to be created dynamically, automatically populating relevant clinical risks and benefits and providing the most relevant clinical information based on individual patients and their planned procedure.
The new digital approach supported by eConsent also improves accuracy by replacing the previous laborious process of manually filling in consent forms, which were often incomplete and missed vital details.
Making consent process easier for clinicians
Staff have a checklist helping them to identify risks, benefits and alternatives for each procedure, and patient information can be accessed quickly during the consultation.
Robert Miller, Magentus CEO (EMEA), said: “The eConsent solution is so important because it accurately documents the shared decision-making process that is so crucial to quality patient care.
“As an easy-to-use solution providing clear documentation and ready access, it helps to accurately share the most important details at every step of the way and helps lead to better patient outcomes.
“We look forward to Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust experiencing the same degree of improvement in the process and patient satisfaction that other trusts using eConsent have experienced.”
Health tech company Magentus has made a number of acquisitions to accelerate its global expansion this year, including consolidating Citadel Health, Wellbeing Software and Genie Solutions under a single brand.