Seattle's Virginia Mason Medical Center will incorporate a one-page informational form in the coming weeks into its consent-for-surgery process to inform surgical patients of the possibility of overlapping procedures, according to a report from The Seattle Times.
In the past, consent forms at Virginia Mason contained information about the role of care teams in the operating room, but did not mention surgeons may be overseeing multiple operations in different ORs.
"Your responsible physician will not perform a concurrent surgery or procedure, which means you responsible physician will not perform the critical portions of a surgery or procedure on another patient in another room at the same time as your surgery, except in an emergency situation," the information form says. "Your responsible physician may not be in the room with your care team for noncritical portions of your surgery."
Concurrent surgeries became a topic of debate in the medical community in 2016. After asking 20 hospitals and health systems to describe their policies for concurrent surgeries in March 2016, the Senate Finance Committee deemed the practice unsafe and urged hospitals to ban the practice in December of that year. In April 2016, the American College of Surgeons issued new standards on the practice. While the ACS didn't ban overlapping procedures outright, the organization determined that the patients should be informed of their possible involvement in an overlapping procedure.
Virginia Mason's new informational sheet has been in the works for more than a year, according to the report. Leaders of the medical staff approved the new form for use on Wednesday. Similar informational sheets have been implemented this year at Swedish Health and the University of Washington, both located in Seattle.
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