Provider Perspective on Being Recorded During Emergency Medicine Discharge Conversations

Despite the possible benefits of provider-recorded visit summaries for patient use, the utilization of such recordings has yet to be adopted as standard care in most specialities. The objective of this study was to investigate the perspectives of emergency department (ED) providers regarding the utilization of audio or video recordings during ED patient encounters, particularly during discharge conversations.

This study utilized an eight-question survey pooling the opinions of various emergency medicine nurses, advanced practitioners, residents, and physicians within a local Ohio hospital system. Providers from multiple healthcare centers were studied. Study data were collected using an anonymous online survey database.  Results: Fifty-seven providers were surveyed. Twenty (35%) agreed that patients had the right to record medical conversations, and 36 (63%) cited potential legal liability as their reason for hesitation. Twenty-five providers (43.9%) answered that no video or audio recordings should be provided at discharge. There was no significant difference in secondary outcomes comparing between demographic categories of age, sex, and practice facility type (p>0.05).  Conclusion: Providers who responded to this survey did not feel comfortable being recorded during any portion of their patient encounter, even when providing discharge instructions. Our study showed that there is at least some hesitation on behalf of ED providers based on fear of legal retaliation or violation of HIPPA. However, more research in this area is necessary for recordings to become the standard of care during ED encounters.